The Unusual Suspect
by Osheen Nevoy
Summary: Captain Louis Renault, Casablanca's prefect of police, turned his life upside down when he joined forces with Rick Blaine that fateful night at the Casablanca airport. "M" rating assigned due to events in Chapter 5; the rest of the story is probably a "T" rating. This tale can be viewed as Louis/Rick pre-slash, but that is only one element of the story. Ch. 6 posted; story complete
1. Chapter 1: Thursday, December 4, 1941

**The Unusual Suspect**

 **A _Casablanca_ Fanfiction**

 **Author's Notes:**

The inspiration for this story came to me from reading a non-fiction work titled _Destination Casablanca: Exile, Espionage, and the Battle for North Africa in World War II_ by Meredith Hindley, published in 2017. I was fascinated to learn that while there are many differences between real-life wartime Casablanca and the version that we see in the classic Warner Brothers film, there are also a surprising number of instances in which the makers of the film got things factually right. This was presumably often by chance, since as _Casablanca_ was filmed during World War II, the film-makers could not have had access to the government files and espionage records that were major sources for Hindley as she was writing her book 75 years later. I decided to write a _Casablanca_ fanfiction that would focus on my favorite character from that film, the inimitable Captain Louis Renault, and that would explore some of the real-world people, places and events that I'd encountered in reading _Destination Casablanca_.

My goal in this story is to blend the two sources: the classic film that we know and love so well, and the historical Casablanca as revealed in sources such as Hindley's work. Many of the characters who will appear or be mentioned in this story, namely Jewish activist Helene Benatar, French General Antoine Bethouart, Vice-Consul David King of the U. S. Consulate, Consul-General Theodor Auer of the German Armistice Commission, and American expatriate singer and French Resistance agent Josephine Baker, are all figures from history who were indeed in Casablanca at the time in which this story is set, and whose characters and activities I've attempted to present with historical accuracy.

I was also fascinated to learn how physically different the real city of Casablanca was at the time in which the famous film is set, from the impression we are given in _Casablanca_. In the film, we basically only see a stylized version of the Ancienne Medina-the Old Town area of Casablanca. In reality, in the early 1940s Casablanca was a modern city of around 350,000 inhabitants-not counting the vast numbers of refugees who fled there escaping the Nazi advance, just as we are told in the voice-over at the beginning of _Casablanca_. My other major reference source in writing this story has been _Casablanca: Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures_ (Jean-Louis Cohen and Monique Eleb, 2002) which revealed to me a very different Casablanca from the labyrinthine warren of ancient, twisting alleyways that is so memorably depicted in the film. I've had great fun attempting to mesh the characters and events of the classic movie with the physical reality of the city of Casablanca as it truly was in those days when so many desperate refugees could only "wait ... and wait ... and wait."

One final note: It seems logical to assume that for the most part, all of the characters in the film are speaking in French. Naturally, German characters would speak to each other in German, and Rick and Sam presumably speak to each other in English, but for the most part, I'm assuming that the main body of the dialogue of the film should be understood as being spoken in French. I find rather annoying the literary convention by which, in order to show that characters are speaking in a particular language, certain easily recognizable words are thrown into the dialogue-for instance, inserting "oui, mon capitaine" and suchlike into dialogue that is theoretically ALL being spoken in French, but is actually written (or spoken, in the case of the film) in English. So, for this story, the reader should assume that all the dialogue is actually being spoken in French, except when otherwise specified. In order to make that policy as consistent as I can, I've tried to completely avoid the use of randomly interspersed easily recognizable French terms. So, for instance, characters will say "miss" rather than "mademoiselle," "Mr." or "sir" instead of "monsieur," "yes" instead of "oui," etc. The only exception to this rule that I've allowed myself is in the case of place names. Perhaps it's illogical, but I couldn't bring myself to give up the flavor and sense of place that I feel is provided by using the actual French place names. So, they alone are not translated into English-well, place names along with _La Marseillaise_ , the title of which seemed just ridiculous to translate, and phrases such as "a propos" which have become so common in English usage.

All of that being said-I hope someone has been willing to wade through this enormous note in order to get to the story itself! Or, at least, I hope someone has skipped the note in order to get to the story.

I am, of course, making no money off of this-Rick Blaine, Louis Renault and company are the property of Warner Brothers, I assume-but they are also the emotional property of all of us who feel that we know and love them.

 **Chapter One:**

 ** _Thursday, December 4, 1941—Night_**

The beautiful dream that they could run away together lasted for less than a minute.

One of the patrolmen drove Louis' car around to the small airport parking lot. Lieutenant de Garmeux used the telephone in the airport's office to ring Casablanca's central police station with the shocking news of Major Strasser's death. Others of the squad set out in their patrol car to escort the body of the late and unlamented Nazi major back into town.

Through occasional rain puddles glimmering in the airport lights, Louis Renault and Rick Blaine strolled toward Louis' car. And Louis wished the stroll could last a great deal longer than it did.

By the time they reached the car, they would have to face reality.

Already the proposal he had made to Rick a few moments ago, that they join the Free French at Brazzaville, had the unreal feeling of a scheme two boys would hatch together. It was every bit as joyful, and every bit as impossible, as a plan to join the circus or become pirates. The surreal thought struck Louis that they ought to have come up with this plan while perched in a tree house, or playing in a log fort they had built in the woods—not standing on the fog-shrouded tarmac of an airport where one of them had just committed murder.

The policeman who had moved the car, Patrolman Levesque, got out and saluted as his captain and Mr. Blaine approached. As an excuse to get the young man out of earshot, Louis turned to Rick and asked, "You have luggage here at the airport?"

"Yeah," the American nodded. "A couple of suitcases."

"Find Mr. Blaine's suitcases and load them into the car," Louis ordered young Levesque.

"Yes, Captain," Levesque answered, saluting again.

As soon as the youthful policeman was too far away to hear them, Rick said, "This isn't going to work, Louis."

"What isn't going to work?" Louis asked—although he felt fairly certain he and Rick had been thinking the same thing.

"Running away to Brazzaville. It won't fly. You and me, vanishing the same night Major Strasser turns up with a bullet in his heart … we might as well take out an ad in the paper announcing we killed him. Next thing you know, every German agent in Africa is going to be on our trail."

"I know," Louis sighed. He took out his cigarette case and tamped a cigarette against it. When his own cigarette's smoke was joining Rick's, swirling away into the airport fog, he asked, "Have you an alternate plan?"

"Yeah," Rick told him, scowling. "I think you have to arrest me after all. If you let me escape, it'll put you in the hot seat with Heinze and his Gestapo pals. No point in both of us taking the fall for this, when one will do."

"Really, Ricky," Louis said in exasperation. "How many times do you feel the need to sacrifice yourself in one night?"

"Well?" Rick asked, sounding equally exasperated. "You got a better plan? We're not pinning the murder on Laszlo," he added, with sudden ferocity. "I didn't go through all of that to get him out of Casablanca, just for him to be arrested the second he lands in Lisbon."

"No, no, Ricky, don't worry. We won't pin the murder on Laszlo. No," Louis continued thoughtfully, as bits and pieces of a plan started coming together in his mind, "I think I've an idea that should get the two of us through this, without requiring the sacrifice of either of us."

Rick grumbled, "Then your brain's working better than mine is. I guess I already used up my ration of thinking for one day."

Louis watched a puff of smoke that he sent to join the fog. Then he said, "Instead of Brazzaville, what would you think of joining the Resistance here in Morocco? I think I know how we can get you in touch with the right people, who will smuggle you out of town. And if I also throw in my lot with the Resistance, I could potentially be of far greater use to them as prefect of police, than as just one additional piece of cannon-fodder. And," he added, "it will save us the 5,000-mile trek to Brazzaville."

"Your man's coming back," Rick pointed out. "If you've got a plan, Louis, then go for it."

Louis nodded. "The plan begins with quite a large gamble," he said. "Wish me luck, Ricky."

The American told him quietly, "I always do."

Patrolman Levesque hurried up with a suitcase in each hand. He put down the suitcases and saluted, and Louis gestured for him to stow them in the trunk of the car.

 _I think I know why I feel I can trust this kid,_ Louis thought. _With his wisp of a mustache and his puppy-dog eyes, he reminds me of my little brother._

Naturally, Patrolman Philippe Levesque was not Etienne Renault. Louis told himself, _A chance resemblance is a remarkably stupid reason for me to trust this young man with Rick's life—and with my life, as well._

But he had other causes for believing it a reasonable bet to trust Levesque. The kid had not always been as discreet as he should be in expressing his political beliefs. Ordinarily, that might have been a reason _not_ to place his trust in the boy. It meant, however, that at least Louis had some insight into Philippe Levesque's politics.

With the suitcases stashed in the trunk, Levesque stood awaiting his next orders. Louis felt rather sorry for him, considering the shock he was about to get.

"Levesque," Louis addressed him in tones of command, "I am going to put to you a question, and I will need your honest answer. Your reply to this question may have more impact than you can guess on your own life, on mine, and on the lives of a great many others."

As was no surprise, the young policeman stared at his captain in alarm. "Yes, My Captain," he said warily.

"Where do you stand upon the question of a Free France?"

Now Levesque looked as though he had eaten something rotten. His hesitation dragged on, and Louis began to wonder if he would need to prompt the kid with a further question. Then Levesque clearly decided it was time to take a stand for his principles.

"Sir," he said with vehemence, "I believe that our countrymen who fight for a Free France have more honor than we do. I believe our government betrayed us when they chose to bow down before the Germans. I believe it will someday be the duty of all true Frenchmen to fight against our oppressors. Until we do, we will be unworthy to bear the name of Frenchmen; we will be only Germany's slaves. Sir," he concluded rather lamely, obviously wondering whether he was now about to be fired, arrested, or deported—or perhaps all three.

That, Louis reflected, was a more spirited speech than he had expected Levesque to give. He thought, _So much the better._

"Good," Louis told the young man, with a smile. "That is approximately what I'd hoped you would say." While Patrolman Levesque blinked and digested that news, Louis' words sped onward. "Mr. Blaine and I need your help tonight. You have your bicycle at the police station, do you not?"

Trying not to look too surprised at this seemingly out-of-nowhere question, Levesque said, "Yes, Captain."

"As soon as you and Lieutenant de Garmeux get to the station, I want you to take your bike and meet Mr. Blaine and myself by the school just off the Boulevard Marechal Foch, at Rue Lamoriciere and Rue Dunkerque. You know the place?"

"Yes, Captain,"

Taking a guess as to which area of the school buildings would be most secluded from prying eyes, Louis went on, "We will probably be in one of the parking lots; most likely the one on the Rue Dunkerque side. Tell no one where you are going. If de Garmeux or any other officer asks, you may tell him that I have sent you to conduct surveillance on the Gestapo's villa in Anfa. You understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Levesque. "I understand enough."

"Very good. Then we will see you shortly. And Phillippe—thank you."

This time when Patrolman Levesque saluted, he did so with a broad grin. Just before hurrying away, he said, "It's an honor to be of service."

Louis and Rick watched as the young policeman hastened to join Lieutenant de Garmeux, now waiting at the main hangar beside the car that the late Major Strasser had driven to the airport.

Rick remarked, "I hope you've got more of a plan than me taking that kid's bike and bicycling out of Casablanca."

Louis decided not to dignify that comment with a direct answer. "Get in the car," he ordered. "I'll tell you about it on the way in to town."

Before getting into the driver's seat, Louis trod out the remnants of his cigarette. He retrieved the stub and stashed it in his cigarette case. Rick, meanwhile, started in on a new cigarette as Louis drove out through the monumental airport gate. Knowing Louis' dislike of cigarette smoke within a tightly-sealed car, Rick cranked his window down halfway.

As they headed north along the Route de Magazan, Louis began, "I believe you know Mr. David King?"

"Dave King, from the U.S. Consulate? Sure. He spends a lot of time at the café."

"Has he ever sounded you out about becoming involved in the Resistance?"

"He's danced around the idea a few times. I always shot him down before he could get far with it. Always told him I stick my neck out for nobody."

Louis nodded. "I believe he has made similar attempts with me. He's been careful not to say anything incriminating, but he made various leading comments about Vichy, which if I had answered in kind, would likely eventually have led to some practical proposition. What I have heard from sources of my own leads me to conclude that Mr. King is organizing Resistance cells—or at the very least, groups of like-minded individuals who will be willing to fight or take other practical action if the opportunity presents itself."

Rick snorted quietly. "That's not much of an incentive to join him. If your sources know that much about what he's up to, chances are the Germans' sources know it, too. And so do the Germans."

"Oh, I am certain the Germans suspect his activities, but I think they have nothing definite they can pin on him. I hope."

"Okay," said Rick. "So Dave King is organizing Resistance cells, and you think he can smuggle me out of town. What's your plan for keeping me alive and free until you can hand me over to him?"

As Louis drove, Casablanca's city lights glowed steadily brighter in the distance ahead of them. Those lights, of course, were nothing compared to what they had been before the war. But still the city formed an oasis of light, beckoning them onward out of the blackness about them.

"For a start," Louis said, "we're going to pin the blame for Strasser's murder on you."

"Seems reasonable," said Rick, "since I'm the one who killed him."

Louis' mouth quirked in amusement. "That should indeed serve to aid the story's believability. My story," he went on, "which I will tell in my official report and will recount to anyone who questions me, is that when I told my men to round up the usual suspects, you were still aiming your pistol at me. To save my life, I naturally complied with your command not to order your arrest."

"Naturally."

"Still threatening me at gunpoint, you ordered me to drive you into town. As I am doing now. I drove, following your directions, until we reached a secluded spot near the city center. And then—instead of meeting Patrolman Levesque, as I trust we will soon be doing—at that point in my fairy tale, you knock me out with the butt of your pistol, deposit my unconscious form upon the roadside—gently, I hope—and you steal the car."

"Right," Rick grunted. "And in reality, what's happening instead is …?"

"What's happening instead is that Levesque loads his bike into the car and drives away, and meanwhile you and I walk home and I smuggle you into my apartment. I then telephone the station, order another car to pick me up and also issue an order for your capture for the murder of Major Strasser, for assault on a police officer, and for the theft of a police vehicle. While squads of police are combing the city for you, you of course are safe and snug in my apartment. Sometime tomorrow I will contact Dave King and arrange for him to come over to my place and spirit you away."

Not sounding impressed, Rick said, "So while you and Dave King are playing secret agent, all I get to do is cool my heels in your apartment?"

"Only for a day, Ricky. Look on it as an opportunity to catch up on your sleep; I'm sure you haven't had enough of that lately. Anyhow, you'll have plenty of opportunities for playing secret agent soon. Before you know it, you'll be running about Morocco performing heroic exploits like a character in some boys' adventure magazine."

"Unh-hunh. Let's get back to Levesque. What's he going to be getting up to while you're tucking me in at your apartment?"

Louis felt his shoulders tighten in tension. This next part of his plan, he knew only too well, was one of which Rick was not going to approve. "Levesque," he answered, "is meanwhile driving to one of the beaches. He drives the car out into the surf and abandons it—and he, of course, rides his bicycle back into town. When, eventually, the car is discovered, your baggage is still inside, but there is no trace of you. The obvious conclusion which everyone makes—including, I trust, the Gestapo and all of their friends—is that you have walked out into the ocean and drowned yourself."

"No," said Rick.

"Oh, come, now, Ricky," argued Louis, striving not to show how badly Rick was worrying him with that one word. "I put myself through this remarkable process of creation, birthing a beautifully elegant scheme which enables us to save your ass, and all you have to say about it is 'no'?"

"No one's going to believe a story like that. Who the hell commits suicide by walking out into the sea?"

"Rick, trust me, everyone will believe it. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time in the movies."

"That's just what I mean. That kind of stupid crap _only_ happens in the movies."

"I assure you, you are thinking about this all wrong. It's because it is such a movie-like scenario that people are going to believe it—particularly since you are an American."

"You think Americans are congenitally more prone to walking out into the sea than anybody else?"

"What is the most frequent contact most people have with America and with Americans? American movies. All they know about Americans is what they see the characters doing in your films. Because a character in your circumstances would act this way in a film, it will seem perfectly natural that you would act this way, as well."

"In my circumstances?" Rick growled, even as Louis mentally cursed himself for having spoken that phrase. "What circumstances am I in?"

Louis attempted to manoeuver his way toward some not-too-incendiary words. Carefully he said, "Delayed reaction to having killed a man; perhaps a decision that you will deprive the Germans of the satisfaction of taking their revenge on you … and whatever emotional disturbance you may have felt as a result of Miss Lund's departure."

"Emotional disturbance," Rick repeated. "How very delicately worded." He sucked in a last deep inhalation from his cigarette and then flicked its stub out the car window. "Jesus, Louis," he muttered crossly. "I don't want anyone to think I'm the kind of chump who'd kill himself over a broken heart. That's what the God-damned dicky-bird does in _The Mikado_!"

Louis internally smiled. The fact that Rick retained enough pride to be offended at what people might think of him seemed to Louis a very good sign. If he was this touchy about his image, it showed there was no real chance of him _actually_ committing some act of self-destruction.

As for _The Mikado_ , Louis didn't have even a nodding acquaintance with it. He couldn't, however, see any reason why _The Mikado_ or its dicky-bird should be permitted to invalidate his argument.

"You see, Ricky," he said, "it is precisely as I'm telling you. This sort of storyline is so prevalent because people find it believable. It is exactly the kind of act that will fit in with their expectations."

Rick observed, still sounding sulky, "Your ideas of what's believable must be pretty damn different from mine."

Rick's continued resistance to his plan was starting to make Louis feel ever-so-slightly sulky himself. "Well," he demanded, "have you a believable idea? A way to make the Nazis think you're dead and there is no point in searching for you, without requiring that we produce your corpse?"

Rick sighed and said with very ill grace, "No."

"Then until you do have one," Louis decreed, "we will move forward with implementing my idea."

He had rather expected his friend to keep arguing with him, but Rick instead subsided into silence. That caused Louis a thought which made him smile: _Perhaps Ricky really wants someone to take charge and order him around, now and then._ Though if that were true, he thought it could only be an occasional—and very specific—"now and then." Major Strasser's propensity to issue orders, for example, had not been particularly welcomed by Richard Blaine.

They had reached the edge of town and were now driving past the most outlying suburbs, a goodly number of which still scarcely existed outside of their developers' minds. In the dark, there was nothing of them to see. But Louis could easily picture the surreal network of empty streets that he knew had been carved into the fields and scrublands here: streets, traffic circles and cul-de-sacs all awaiting construction of the houses that would turn them into neighborhoods instead of merely dreams of the future.

He drove on, past the suburbs that already did exist, though for the most part they were nearly as invisible as the streets of unbuilt houses. Most of the residents of the modest villas that made up these developments had their blackout curtains firmly in place. And, clearly, those who lived here were the type who would be snugly ensconced in their homes long before curfew rolled around. Only an occasional streetlight, and here and there a blackout curtain not quite fully closed, served to confirm that the neighborhoods were even there.

Louis found himself wondering what state of mind Rick was in now. To see what he could discover, he started their conversation up again with, "I'm sorry you don't like my plan. This suicide-for-love business won't make people think less of you. We French adore a good, tragic romance. Well," he amended, "we adore any romance. But the tragic ones are always popular."

"Yeah?" inquired the still fairly disgruntled-sounding Rick. "How about the Germans? Do they adore tragic romances, too?"

Louis smiled. "Perhaps not so much as the French. Probably this will simply confirm their belief that the rest of us are hopelessly decadent—Americans included."

They had left the suburbs behind them. The Maarif district gleamed into view to the left of the road. In this Italian and Spanish enclave, home to factory employees and dock workers, the rapid approach of the curfew hour troubled residents not at all. The neighborhood cafés, Louis knew, would still be enjoying a roaring trade at this time of night. He thought he could even hear, through the open window on Rick's side of the car, strains of music from some of those cafés, wafting to them across the night.

At the intersection with Rue Meissonier, Louis turned right, heading into his own part of town: the New Town, that in daylight could be so blazing a white it hurt the eyes, its boulevards lined on either side by phalanxes of high-rise apartment buildings. At nighttime, with curfew so near, this part of the city was a shadowy ghost of itself. The pale, tall forms of the apartment buildings loomed like massive ancient monuments—like hugely enlarged versions of the megalithic stones of Brittany, so beloved by Louis' father.

For one instant the image of Casablanca's apartment buildings as grotesquely outsized Carnac Stones was amusing to him. Then he found himself irritated by the thought that his father's ancient obsession could intrude itself into even so resolutely modern a setting as New Town Casablanca.

Tonight another thought was bothering him about the countless apartment buildings, besides their faint resemblance to gigantic megalithic monuments. He was starting to wish he had thought of some other location for their planned meeting with Philippe Levesque. His skin began to tingle with alarm as he thought of the number of people who might be watching out the windows of all those apartments. Everywhere a blackout curtain was not closed, and at every spot where a speck of light might show a curtain being pulled aside, he imagined someone was standing at the window, watching them.

His apprehension was idiotic, he knew. A goodly portion of the city's residents were sure to be asleep. Those who were not, likely had better things to do than just staring out of their windows. And what would anyone actually see? A car driving by. That would be all. It wasn't as though they'd have anything incriminating to report to Consul-General Auer of the German Armistice Commission. And—although Casablanca's aggravated French officials often felt that way—Herr Auer did not, in fact, have the entire city in his pay, spying for him.

All the same, on this night Louis found himself sourly disliking all the apartment buildings' many windows. Tonight those windows looked to him like hundreds upon hundreds of eyes, all of them watching, all determined to witness every action taken by Captain Renault and Richard Blaine—and determined to betray them.

He took a left turn off Boulevard Marechal Foch. To his relief, the school buildings ahead of them looked entirely dark. He had started to second-guess his choice about that, as well, fearing that some teacher might be working late or the janitors might still be inside there, mopping. But this close to curfew, all of the good, respectable folk like teachers and janitors clearly had already headed home.

He drove in to the little parking lot tucked between the corners of two of the buildings. It was empty, just as he'd hoped it would be. And here, the school buildings would shield them from at least most eyes that might be watching. He assured himself that even those few people who might catch sight of them would have very little to see. In the scanty illumination from the streetlight across Rue Lamoriciere, it would be difficult even to be certain that Louis' car was there.

When he switched off the ignition, silence sank heavily around them. That silence was a good sign, Louis told himself. It meant not many people were about, to have a chance of noticing them. Of course it also meant that any noise they might make would seem magnified a thousandfold.

The two of them got out and stood waiting, leaning on the side of the car. They each lit up another cigarette. _At this rate,_ Louis thought, _by the time I get home and can deposit these in the rubbish bin, I'll have more cigarette butts in my case than fresh cigarettes._

He felt sure there were things they ought to talk about. There must be plans they should make. But he also knew there were times when it showed better friendship just to be silent. Very likely this was one of those times.

 _And,_ he thought, _if I am so damnably worried about somebody noticing us, it does not make very much sense for me to indulge in chatting._

He knew it took far less time than he felt like it did, before the will-o'-the-wisp light of Patrolman Levesque's bicycle bobbed into view. The young policeman rode straight up to them. Levesque dismounted and saluted; then he switched off his bike's headlight.

"Did you have any trouble getting away?" Louis asked him.

"No, sir. The lieutenant did ask where I was going, but I don't think he had any doubts about your sending me to watch the Germans."

"Good. Here is what we will need you to do."

As he outlined the plan for Levesque, Louis imagined he could feel aggravation radiating off the American standing beside him. But since Rick had not come up with a workable alternate plan, he was going to have to live with the aggravation.

"You will load your bicycle in the car and drive out to the coast. Go to some beach and abandon the car there. We want it to appear as though Mr. Blaine drove to the beach and committed suicide through walking into the ocean. Naturally, you must take every precaution to leave no sign of you or your bicycle returning up the beach. It should look as though the only person to leave the car did so by walking into the waves."

Eagerly Levesque said, "I understand, sir. I think I know the perfect beach to make it work. It's got enough spurs of rock running out along it that I should easily be able to walk back along the rocks. I probably won't need to ever step on the sand."

Louis congratulated himself for having chosen this young man as their accomplice. He asked, "Have you gloves with you?"

"Yes, sir," Levesque said, producing his gloves from a pocket.

Louis went on briskly, "Good; then you can wear your gloves when you drive, so you will not leave your fingerprints on the wheel. Which reminds me: Rick, come stick your fingerprints on the steering wheel."

"You think of everything," Rick muttered grudgingly.

"I trust so. In order to show our German friends that we are investigating with due diligence, I am sure when the car is eventually found we will need to dust the wheel for fingerprints."

When Rick had gone through the requisite steering-wheel-holding, Louis asked him, "Is there anything you wish to retrieve from your suitcases?"

Rick got out of the car. "No," he said. "There's nothing I need. I didn't figure I'd have access to the suitcases, anyway. I figured tonight I'd either be in jail or dead."

"That's good. The more fully your baggage is packed when it's found, the more it should look to Auer and his cohorts as though you've departed this mortal plane." He turned to Levesque. "When you're done at the beach, you had better go keep watch on Consul-General Auer's villa, as you're officially supposed to be doing. You go off-duty at six a.m., don't you?" Levesque nodded, and Louis continued, "To make your cover-story as convincing as possible, I want you to come to me and report the results of your surveillance just before the end of your shift."

Though he could not precisely see it in their dark surroundings, Louis felt fairly certain that Patrolman Levesque was gaping at him in amazement. "To you, sir?" came Levesque's incredulous question. "But you won't be in the office that early, will you?"

Louis smiled, without much humor. "Sadly," he said, "in this crisis I will be unable to maintain my usual schedule. With a murdered Nazi on our hands and the murderer supposedly on the loose in my car, I fear I shall have to move into the office for the foreseeable future."

It was the work of only a few moments for Levesque to stow his bike on the car's back seat and drive off, after enthusiastically declaring that he would live up to the trust his captain had placed in him.

When the sound of the car engine faded in the distance, Louis said, "Right. The next order of business is for me to make it look as though I've been dumped out of a car. I hope I'm correct in assuming that if you did such a thing to me, you would deposit me upon the sidewalk instead of on the street?"

"Sure, I guess," Rick said, sounding like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Feeling only a slight bit ludicrous, Louis said, "Then here goes." He walked briskly to the nearest sidewalk, took off his cap and then proceeded to lie down flat on his back.

 _At least I don't have my dress uniform on,_ he thought. The blue everyday uniform would be far easier to successfully clean, after this tomfoolery, than would the white. He grimaced a little as he pictured Casablanca's pervasive, terra cotta-colored dust, which he usually diligently tried to keep off himself, and which he was now attempting, with equal vigor, to attract. It occurred to him that with the sidewalk still damp from the rain of earlier that evening, he might even manage to pick up a little mud.

Louis flailed about a bit, as he imagined he might do if he were regaining consciousness on the sidewalk. Then he propped himself up on one elbow.

"Honestly, Louis," Rick said to him in complaining tones. "Don't you think I've got any chivalry in me? If I was going to deposit your unconscious form in the dust, I'd lay my coat down for you to lie on, to stop your uniform getting dirty." A trace of sly humor entered the American's voice as he added, "Just like Sir Walter Raleigh, laying down his cloak for Queen Elizabeth to walk on."

Louis thought that was the funniest thing he'd heard in an exceptionally long time—and his life had no shortage of humor in it. He grinned upwards in the dark.

"If you believe you are anything like Sir Walter Raleigh," he countered, "then you are nearly as deluded as if you believe I am anything like Queen Elizabeth." He held up his hand toward his friend. "But if you are, indeed, so full of chivalry, then you can give me a hand up."

He didn't actually need any help in standing up again. But he appreciated the warm, firm grip of Rick's hand around his. In fact, he found he was reluctant to let go of Rick's hand, although of course he did let it go. He couldn't quite stop himself from feeling the treacherously sentimental wish that he need never let Rick go at all.

"Want me to pistol-whip you over the head?" Rick offered. "That way you'll have the appropriate goose-egg to show for your suffering, when the Gestapo come searching for it."

"Many thanks," Louis dryly answered as he put on his cap and straightened his jacket. He had to remind himself not to obsessively try removing the dirt he had just been working so hard to get onto himself. "I think we can dispense with that particular piece of realism."

"Suit yourself," said the shadowy Rick, obviously shrugging. "Don't blame me if that's the one missing detail that exposes your story as a tissue of lies."

"We had better get going," Louis said. "The longer we hang about, the more chance there is that someone will notice us. And on that topic, we should go to my place separately. I'll head up Rue Lamoriciere; you wait a couple minutes after I've left and then go around by another road, perhaps Rue Bugeaud."

Rick inquired, "Have you always been this paranoid?"

"A little judiciously-applied paranoia never hurt anyone," stated Louis. "For the past two years, Casablanca's guardians of law and order have been playing cat-and-mouse with Consul-General Auer of the German Armistice Commission. Unfortunately, he is more frequently the cat than we are. It is common wisdom among us that in Casablanca, nobody can fart without one of Auer's informants being near enough to smell it and report to him on the precise composition of its scent. It will ruin my night if anyone informs Herr Auer that they saw you and me walking together, at the very time when you are supposed to have knocked me over the head and absconded with my car."

"Sounds like I killed the wrong German," Rick suggested. "You want me to go shoot Herr Auer, so I can give you Auer and Strasser as a matched set?"

"That would be lovely, Ricky, but I'm afraid we cannot afford it. We have problems enough to deal with, resulting from your killing one of them. I believe—and hope—that Casablanca can survive unscathed through the misfortune of one prominent Nazi turning up dead in our jurisdiction. If two of them get themselves done in, I fear troops would arrive the next day. We would find ourselves the latest territorial addition to Occupied France."

"Sorry to cause you so much trouble."

"Don't mention it," Louis told him, smiling even though presumably Rick could not see him do so. "I can endure a great deal of trouble in exchange for the satisfaction of watching you shoot Major Strasser. Let's get back to business," he said, as much to himself as to Rick. "You know where I live? It is 'Les Studios,' the tall, thin building at the intersection of Avenue d'Amade and Rue Blaise Pascal."

"I know it."

"You can go around the back of the building and come to the service entrance on Avenue d'Amade."

That was a more exposed route than Louis was happy with using, since it placed Rick at least briefly on one of Casablanca's busiest streets. But at this time of night, he reminded himself, none of Casablanca's streets should be busy. And that particular service staircase gave direct access to Louis' apartment.

He went on, "I'll be there to let you in. We can't let the doorman see you come in the front door with me. If Abdel has no idea of your presence, he will give more believable denials when multiple Germans question him about it."

"Makes sense," Rick said. He pointed out, "You'd better get going, Louis, if you're so hot to make sure nobody sees us together."

A sudden suspicion leapt into Louis' mind. All at once he wondered if it would be a dreadful mistake for him to walk away and leave Rick alone.

"Ricky," he said urgently. "You are going to come to my place, aren't you? You're not planning to pull some new self-sacrificing stunt and disappear into the night?"

"Not a chance," Rick assured him. "I don't want to miss seeing what kind of crazy shit you'll come up with next. You run along. I'll see you soon."

Louis snapped, "You had better." He turned and strode up the street before his fears could talk him out of it.

It was only about a three-minute walk to his home. Along the way, he concentrated on feeling the mood he was supposed to be in. He rehearsed in his mind the fiction he would need to inhabit from this point forward.

 _Here I am,_ he thought, _angry and confused, storming along with my pride badly wounded and with a severely aching head._

 _Here I am, furious with Rick for all of it: for conking me on the head, for stealing my car, for killing Major Strasser and placing me in an awkward position with Vichy and Berlin, for tricking me into letting Victor Laszlo go flying off to Lisbon. I am furious with Rick for making me care about him and for the fact that there is nothing I can do to stop him from being killed._

He thought his fiction was close enough to reality that he should have no difficulty acting it.

His building loomed up before him. Above the front door, the streamlined chrome of the words "Les Studios" gleamed in the light from the nearby streetlamp. Louis stomped into the lobby, scowl firmly in place. He met the flabbergasted stare of Abdel the night doorman, hurrying out from behind the front desk.

"Captain Renault!" old Abdel gasped, unable to retain his usual unshakable calm. "Sir, are you all right?"

"No," Louis snapped, heading straight for the elevator. "I am sorry, Abdel. I do not have time to discuss it."

Abdel didn't make it there before him to open the elevator's elaborate iron gate. He did, however, succeed in closing the gate again after Louis stepped inside the elevator. The old man thus salvaged some of his pride by fulfilling at least one aspect of his job description.

As the elevator ferried him to Les Studios' fourth floor, Louis felt his usual relief that this was not a building at which the managers believed it a sign of luxury to employ elevator attendants.

Tonight it meant that as soon as the elevator door closed, he could take a break from his theatrical performance. More frequently, the unattended ride upstairs meant the opportunity for a kiss and a squeeze and a sweet nothing or two, with whatever woman was going home with him that night.

On those more usual rides, the end of the brief upward trip normally led to some murmurs of disappointment from Louis and his companion, and to them hastening to his apartment, amid whispered endearments and giggles, to commence the serious business of the night.

Tonight he was simply glad that the elevator ride was brief. He had, tonight, even more serious business to attend to: the business of continuing to rescue Rick.

As soon as he switched on the light inside his apartment's front door, he glanced over to assure himself that the blackout curtains were firmly in place. They were, of course. He always made certain he closed them properly in the morning, before he left for work.

In that next moment, the sight of his apartment caused an unpleasant question to pop into his mind.

 _Did I decide we wouldn't run away to Brazzaville just because I don't want to leave my apartment?_

He _did_ love this place. He loved the soaring airiness of the two-story living room. He loved to stand on his balcony up there, enjoying the view of this elegant, open-plan room, nearly as much as he loved standing on the loggia or on one of the outside balconies and gazing over the city of Casablanca.

His was one of the corner apartments. One set of views led southward, toward the edge of town. The other side—the view he liked best—faced westward, over the Parc Lyautey just across the street, and beyond, over the New Town and the Old Medina, toward the sea.

 _Did I really nix the Brazzaville plan because I'm so comfortable here? Was that what made me change my mind—not the impracticalities of a 5000-mile journey with every German agent in Africa—plus a goodly portion of their army and their air force—traipsing along at our heels?_

Impatiently Louis told himself that right now, his motivations didn't matter. This was not a time for soul-searching. It was a time for him to get Mr. Richard Blaine temporarily out of harm's way.

He strode across his living room, past the seldom-used dining table and through the kitchen, straight for the apartment's back door.

Feeling slightly absurd—like a character in one of those farces full of mismatched spouses who continually pop in and out through the multiple doors onstage—he eased open the door and peered out. To his relief, the service stairwell was dark. His brain had started to conjure disastrous possibilities such as one of his neighbors having just held a dinner party, and their catering staff trooping up and down the stairs at just the right moment to catch Louis playing spy. But even if there _had_ been such a dinner party, it ought to be over by now, and the staff and all of the guests, as well, should be safely back in their homes. Eleven o'clock, the hour of Casablanca's curfew, had finally arrived.

Of course he risked breaking his neck by sneaking down the stairs in the dark. But he would just have to tread with care and keep a tight hold on the bannister. He wasn't going to switch on the lights. One of his fellow tenants might be in their kitchen, might notice the light going on, and might come into the stairwell to investigate. Not that he believed that risk to be much more likely than his imaginary troops of cooks and waitresses on the stairs. The apartments in Les Studios were rented only to single tenants and to couples without children. People of that demographic, he thought, should have better things to do in the middle of the night than lurking around their kitchen doors.

Anyhow, enough vague light from the distant streetlights came in through the stairwell's column of windows rising upward from the street level to the roof, that he didn't have to feel his way in total blackness. He could just about see the stairs.

When he reached the outside door and cracked it open, Rick was not yet there. Louis stood peeking through the minimally open door, ordering himself not to think up further nightmare scenarios.

He wasn't going to _begin_ thinking again of the possibility that Rick didn't plan to come here at all. Rick had said he would be here, and so—here he would be.

He wished Rick didn't have to make his approach from the Avenue d'Amade side, but the row of palm trees along the sidewalk should provide enough shadows to shield him from the view of drivers on the road. And anyway, now that curfew had come, there shouldn't _be_ any drivers on the road.

He spent perhaps a minute waiting before a shadow blocked out the light from the slitted-open door. Rick's voice whispered, "Do I have to give a password? Or maybe there's a secret knock."

Louis hissed back, "Shut up and get inside."

Despite his probable urge to keep on teasing Louis, Rick kept quiet as they crept up the murky stairs. Louis thought how ironic it was that in the five or so years in which he'd lived here, this project of smuggling Rick into Les Studios was the first time he had gone sneaking around his apartment building.

With the guests he normally brought home, he had no reason in the world to sneak. More-or-less all of Casablanca was presumably aware that their prefect of police typically entertained at least two different women per week. Perhaps some of those women might prefer that their husbands not learn of their activities. But since said husbands weren't likely to be sneaking around Les Studios, Louis and his visitors had no reason for sneaking, either.

At last they reached the haven of his kitchen. He locked the door behind them, thinking that now, perhaps, he could finally allow himself to breathe. Louis looked at Rick, who was watching him with a small half-smile of amusement. He asked Rick, "Will you have a brandy?"

"Why not? You look like you can use one," Rick observed.

"I can," agreed Louis, leading the way into his living room and to his well-stocked liquor cabinet that nestled beneath the stairs to his second floor. "I believe I have aged at least five years in the past five minutes. I find I do not much enjoy this business of being a fugitive," he went on, as he poured himself and Rick each a sizable brandy. "I greatly prefer being the person from whom the fugitives are hiding."

Rick accepted his glass of brandy with a nod. He said, "Sorry to force you out of your comfort zone."

"Did you see anyone out there?" Louis asked. "Anyone who looked like they were noticing you?"

"Not a soul. If anybody was tailing me, he was better at it than usual. Looks like the residents of this part of town are all good, curfew-obeying folks."

"That is pleasant to know," Louis said. He felt somewhat more like himself after his first, good-sized swig of brandy. "In my ideal vision of Casablanca, the only one in town who'd be breaking any rules would be myself."

"Aw, come on," Rick objected. "Wouldn't you get bored if you didn't have any wrong-doers to arrest?"

"Not a bit of it. I would spend one-quarter of each day in your gambling rooms, and the other three-quarters in my bedroom. Think of how many visa problems I could get sorted out."

Rick grinned over his brandy glass, and Louis sighed. "Well," he said. "I suppose I can't put this off any longer." He forced himself to stride over to the telephone, on its bureau by the front door.

It was probably Sergeant Barère who was manning the front desk at Casablanca's Central Commissariat, judging by the hint of a Gascon accent in the voice that answered the telephone with, "Casablanca Municipal Police."

"This is Captain Renault," Louis said harshly, working to capture again the emotions he was meant to be feeling. "Send a car to pick me up at my apartment straight away."

"But, Captain," began Sergeant Barère. "Don't you have a car with you, sir?"

"I _did_ have one," he snapped out. "Clearly I no longer have it, or I would not be ordering you to send a car for me. Listen carefully. I am going to issue an important order. You had better be ready to write it down."

"Yes, sir!" exclaimed the sergeant, sounding only slightly frantic. Louis thought he could hear some faint scrabbling in the background as the man presumably hunted for paper or a pencil, then Barère said, "I'm ready, Captain."

He looked over at Rick. His friend stood nearby, watching him. Rick's face was expressionless as Louis launched into his "important order."

"This order is for the apprehension and arrest of Richard Blaine, American. He is wanted for the murder of Major Heinrich Strasser"—Louis believed he heard a slight gasp on the other end of the line—"for assault on an officer of the police, for the theft of a police vehicle, registration number 2539 M2, and as accessory to the murder of two German couriers and the theft of their letters of transit. He is believed to be driving the stolen car, and he should be approached with caution; he must be assumed to be armed and extremely dangerous. Do you have all of that?" he demanded.

"Yes, Captain. I've got it."

"Good. Now send a car for me at once," Louis commanded, and he slammed down the 'phone.

He smiled slightly at Rick, who smiled back. "Well," Louis said, "that is that. I'm sorry I failed to warn you I'd be adding in the bits about the couriers and the letters of transit."

"Doesn't seem to make much difference," Rick shrugged. "After the part about murdering Major Strasser, the rest of it's just gravy."

"Yes." After a moment's contemplation, Louis said, "I think, if I were really to come storming home after you had dumped me onto the sidewalk, I would go wash my face." He hurried into the kitchen to do so. Rick wandered in along with him.

As he dried his face on one of the kitchen towels—not too carefully, so that his hasty ablutions might leave behind some noticeable water droplets—he tried to think of everything he ought to say to Rick.

"The W.C. is at the top of the stairs," Louis said, "and the guest bedroom is along the balcony, all the way to the left; the room with about twenty _Parisian Life_ covers on the walls."

"I can't wait to see it."

"Make yourself at home," he went on, "just do me a favor and clean up after yourself. If Consul-General Auer and his troops come searching this place, I don't want to be incriminated by your dirty dishes."

"Because dirty dishes in the sink couldn't possibly be yours, of course. _"_

"Of course not."

"What about your cleaning lady? Should I hide in a closet when she turns up?"

"Fortunately, Mrs. Solomon was here just this morning. She only comes in on Mondays and Thursdays. If you are still here this coming Monday, we will have worse problems to worry about than discovery by Mrs. Solomon. There's some fish stew in the refrigerator," he continued. "You're welcome to it. It should still be fine. I only made it on Monday night."

"I didn't know you cooked," Rick remarked.

"Yes. I'll make somebody a fine little wife someday." The moment he had said it, Louis regretted uttering that joke. Pretending to himself that the joke had not been particularly odd and awkward in their current circumstances, he searched for something else to say. He thought of nothing.

"Well," he said finally. "The car should be here soon. I'd better go downstairs and wait for it."

"Yeah," said Rick Blaine. "Have a good day at work."

Louis stared, trying not to allow himself the asinine thought that he might be looking at Rick for the last time. "Thanks."

He thought, _There is nothing else I can say_. _Or at least, there is nothing I can say that I will not immediately regret._

Rick followed him into the living room. As Louis left his apartment, he had a final glimpse of Rick standing beneath the balcony, brandy glass in hand.

He locked the door and hurried almost blindly to the elevator. He felt angry and disgusted with himself as he realized that he was very nearly in tears.

 _He is safe,_ Louis insisted in his mind. _No one will find him here. No one has any reason to suspect me, or to search my apartment. Nothing is going to happen to Rick._

 _I have no reason in the world to be afraid that I will never see him again._


	2. Chapter 2: Friday, December 5, 1941

**The Unusual Suspect**

 **A _Casablanca_ Fanfiction**

Chapter Two:

Friday, December 5, 1941: Morning

It was a good thing Louis Renault was a gambling man, who thrived on excitement and risk. He spent most of the next twenty or so hours riding a continual wave-crest of adrenaline.

For all that time, he felt he was on the stage. He was delivering a hopefully award-winning performance for an audience consisting of the entire police force and every German agent in town, along with each of Casablanca's elected, appointed or military officials—and probably, by extension, more than a few of such officials in Vichy and in Berlin.

 _It had better be an award-winning performance,_ he told himself. _My reward for it will take the form of Rick's escape._

Of course, he supposed it wasn't exactly accurate to describe himself as a gambling man, since his favorite kind of gambling was the kind in which he had no real chance of losing. In this instance, the risk that he might lose was all too great.

By the time he arrived at the Central Commissariat that night, the activity level of Casablanca's Municipal Police force unsurprisingly resembled that of a colony of ants with a kicked-over anthill.

Louis had no need to rescind his earlier order to round up the usual suspects. These general roundups were always useful. In this particular case, the police would be able to question those they rounded up on whether they had recently seen Richard Blaine, American. But even without that element, it was sensible policy to conduct these general sweeps every week or so.

The raids aided the police in keeping up with the never-ending process of tracking whose permits had expired and who ought to be interned or deported. Naturally, they also aided Captain Renault in developing his list of attractive women who could benefit from his assistance with their residence permits, work permits and visa applications.

Most important of all, the roundups were a means of demonstrating to the higher-ups in Vichy that their officers in Casablanca were working to fulfill their mandates: keeping track of and curtailing the activities of such undesirables as Freemasons, Spanish anti-fascists, and (Heaven defend us) followers of General de Gaulle.

Thus several squads of police raced about the city that night, raiding the lowest-rent hotels and boarding houses in the Old Medina, the Maarif and the old Mellah Jewish quarter, and hauling in a hundred or so unfortunates whose papers were not in order.

Louis felt slightly regretful about ordering these raids in the middle of the night. At least the standard suspect-roundups took place at more civilized times of day. But he told himself he had no choice. If he was going to convince the damned Nazis he was making every effort to capture Rick Blaine, then he could allow himself no squeamishness over rousting several hundred people out of their beds.

Tonight, of course, those raids would not be enough. There was very little likelihood that the regular roundups would turn up the fugitive Mr. Blaine.

The first order Louis barked out on his arrival at the Central Commissariat was for all off-duty police personnel to be telephoned and ordered to report for duty at once. It would be a useful thing for him to be able to tell the Germans, that he had the entire Casablancan police force hunting for Major Strasser's murderer.

A telephone call to the headquarters of the Port Police mobilized their men as well, to search the docks and every ship in the harbor. Louis sent a squad of his men to the train station and sent others to key locations where Rick might be expected to take refuge. The Café Américain, and Rick's apartment above it, were naturally first on the list of locations to be searched. Also high priority was that notorious meeting place of sympathizers with the Allies, the Hotel Transatlantique. And then, of course, there were the homes of Rick's many friends and employees.

Louis grimaced mentally as he issued those search orders. He did not relish being the one to command such intrusions on the privacy of people whose company he enjoyed—and whom, some of them, he more-or-less thought of as his friends. But there was no help for it. He should never have gone into police work, if he was going to be soft-hearted about this sort of thing. And besides—if they only knew it—each one of Rick's employees whose house or apartment got searched tonight would be helping Rick's cause. Every search that Louis could point to in presenting his case to the Nazis was another piece of evidence that he was doing his damnedest to catch Strasser's killer—and, hopefully, another reason for the Germans not to suspect Louis and not to demand a search of _his_ apartment.

Once Louis had issued all the search orders he could think of, he commandeered a desk in the police station's main office. It was, perhaps, a trifle unrealistically showy of him not to go to the privacy of his own office. But he thought there was a basically plausible motivation for him to stay down here. It should be believable enough that he was so deeply, personally invested in this hunt, he didn't want to cut himself off from being able to track its progress moment to moment, even by the minor step of going upstairs to his office.

Seated at his borrowed desk, while all the chaotic bustle of the unexpectedly-mobilized police force whirled about him, Louis raced through writing his report on Strasser's death and the escape of Richard Blaine. Having completed that report, which ran to several pages, he handed it off to be typed. Soon copies of his report, he knew, would be on the desks of myriad officials in Casablanca, and would be winging their way to Vichy and Berlin.

At some point fairly early in that surreal night at the police station, Louis had a visit from Dr. Fabron, the police physician and coroner. Rumor had clearly reached Fabron that the captain had been knocked on the head. Grimacing, Louis submitted to the doctor poking around through his hair. In return, Fabron obliged him with a conveniently vague report.

"Well, you might have a bit of a bump back here," Fabron said noncommittally. Louis figured that was good enough to count as evidence which he could wave before the Germans, if he needed to. "I'd say you were very lucky. You could have gotten your skull split open. I suppose it will be no surprise to all the men to learn that their captain has a thick skull."

"No," Louis agreed. "I daresay it won't surprise them."

"How badly does it hurt?" the doctor inquired. "I can give you some pain-killers for it—"

Feeling that his role required him to be short-tempered about this, Louis replied sharply, "I do not need any pain-killers, thank you. All I need, in order to feel better, is for us to have our man in custody."

Dr. Fabron snorted. "Fine. Then I will just go and perform the autopsy on Major Strasser. At least he is now past the point of resisting his physician's advice."

Shortly after the doctor departed, Lieutenant Casselle came hurrying up, brimful of concern for his captain. Casselle did not quite look his usual impeccable self. He was clearly a man not all that well able to deal with being hauled back on duty in the middle of the night.

"Captain," Casselle said worriedly. "Are you all right?"

Louis stood up and walked out from behind the desk, ruefully rubbing the back of his head. "It seems so. Dr. Fabron told me I have only a minor bump." _And the more I and everyone else talk about this non-existent bump,_ he thought, _the more it will seem to be common knowledge that the thing exists._

"I couldn't believe what has happened, when I heard," Casselle told him. "I still can scarcely believe it. You yourself saw Mr. Blaine shoot the major?"

"Yes," was Louis' answer. "I saw it."

"Then there can be no doubt that Blaine is the culprit," said Casselle in dispirited tones.

"No. I'm afraid there can be no doubt. Now that you are here, Vincent," Louis went on, "I have a delicate task for you. I want you to take a squad and go to the Blue Parrot. Search the place—but you need not look too closely at anything you may see, so long as what you see is not Richard Blaine. Meet with Signor Ferrari. Urge him, if he has knowledge of Rick Blaine's whereabouts, to share that knowledge with us. Remind him of what a thin knife-edge all of us are walking. If it is later learned that he was concealing Rick and did not hand him over to us, it will become more difficult for us to continue turning a blind eye to certain of Signor Ferrari's business practices. And if we are not able to produce Mr. Blaine and thus to satisfy the Germans, all of us are likely to suffer as a result—Signor Ferrari and his business interests included."

Lieutenant Casselle nodded, frowning. "I understand, Captain," he said.

Vincent Casselle was a good person to undertake this task, Louis thought. Louis' aide was largely a discreet and reliable man—with the exception of those occasions when Casselle succumbed to his temptation to indulge in interminable debates with Captain Tonelli over the relative merits and failings of the French and Italian militaries. Even then it was possible to recall Casselle to himself and put an end to his astonishing flow of verbiage—when one wanted to.

More often than not, those arguments made an excellent spectator sport. But when necessary, a few well-chosen words from his captain reminded Casselle that he had a job to do which did not consist of crushing Tonelli's every attempt to assert Italian superiority.

The night wore on, search team after search team returning to the station and reporting their lack of progress. Each team's leader then composed their official written report, to be added to the mountain of paperwork which Louis intended to pile onto the Germans.

Lieutenant Casselle and his squad returned from their Blue Parrot expedition at about two-thirty a.m. Louis found nothing unexpected in Casselle's report that he had searched the café and found no sign of Rick Blaine, that he had spoken with Signor Ferrari, and that he'd received Ferrari's promise of cooperation with the police if he learned anything of the American's whereabouts. Naturally, Louis had not expected Casselle's mission to turn up a trace of Rick. But to make his performance more believable, Louis questioned his aide extensively. He quizzed Casselle on which rooms of the Blue Parrot he had looked into with his own eyes, to which Casselle's stoic and dour-faced answer was, "All of them, Captain, including those which at the time were occupied by the ladies in Signor Ferrari's employ and their customers." Louis also questioned poor Casselle on his interview with Ferrari, and on what he thought about the truthfulness, or lack thereof, of Ferrari's statements.

That interview had been a thankless task which he'd imposed on Vincent Casselle, and questioning him about it at length was equally extreme. It would take a super-hero from the comic strips, with the power to read people's minds, to be able to tell anything useful about whether Signor Umberto Ferrari was speaking the truth.

Louis knew his whole discussion with Casselle was pointless—and it would have been pointless even if he did _not_ know where Rick was actually hiding—except for one thing. By being so unreasonable as to keep on flogging this particular dead horse, Louis figured he was demonstrating that he was in a severely shaken frame of mind. Showing off this fact should serve to convince Casselle, and hopefully anyone else who was paying attention to Louis' actions, that the prefect of police really didn't know the location of Rick Blaine, and was desperately determined to find him.

Soon after Louis finished grilling Casselle on his mission to Ferrari, the Germans made their first appearance at the station. Louis was surprised that it had taken them this long.

Hauptmann Friedrich Heinze arrived with six soldiers as backup. The pudgy officer looked unsurprisingly grim-faced with stress, sweat trickling down from beneath his uniform cap. He stormed up to Louis, seated at his commandeered desk. In his terse and harshly-accented French, Heinze demanded an update on the search for Major Strasser's killer.

"Certainly, my dear Hauptmann," Louis told him, politely getting to his feet. "We will be happy to oblige you. Sergeant Allard over there will give you a thorough update on our efforts thus far. He also has copies of all the reports so far generated, for you to review and add to your files. If you or any of your men would care to remain here throughout the night in order to monitor our progress, you are more than welcome."

"Thank you," said Heinze, casting Louis a narrow-eyed glance as through trying to determine if the captain was in any way mocking him.

"Permit me, Herr Hauptmann, to offer my condolences on Major Strasser's death. His loss must be a painful blow for the Third Reich."

"He was a great man," Heinze declared, "who will be keenly missed." He continued to eye Louis as though daring him to say something disrespectful of the dead man. Louis, however, said nothing. Seeming possibly a bit disappointed that he had no excuse for yelling at Louis, the German continued, "I will review the reports. You understand, of course, that I have many other duties I must attend to as soon as possible—including composing a letter to the major's wife."

Suddenly Heinze seemed to have forgotten his aggravation at Louis. He seemed now merely grief-stricken, and in need of someone—perhaps anyone—who would listen to him talk. "She will receive a telegram, of course, from Major Strasser's commanding officer, and perhaps in time she will even have a letter from _die Fuehrer_ himself, but as the one who worked most closely with the major in his final days, I must write to her—"

Abruptly, Heinze caught himself and cut his words short. "Forgive me, Captain," he said brusquely. "I have not yet recovered from the shock of this. All I meant to say is that I will be back to speak with you later. I would like to hear your account of the major's death for myself. You do not intend to go off-duty anytime soon?" The question was asked with the classic Teutonic disdain for the weaknesses of all lesser peoples.

"No, Herr Hauptmann, I do not," Louis answered. "I intend to remain on duty until we have Major Strasser's murderer in custody."

"Good. I am glad to hear it," Heinze said, aiming a parting glare at the prefect of police. Then he stomped off for Sergeant Allard to update him on the search process.

The thought occurred to Louis that he was becoming as sentimental as he had so often accused Rick of being. Despite himself, he found that he felt ever-so-slightly sorry for Hauptmann Friedrich Heinze—although he still felt not the faintest hint of regret for the loss of Major Heinrich Strasser.

Heinze did not take Louis up on his offer to continually monitor the investigation. He returned instead to the headquarters of the German Armistice Commission, two of the soldiers in his entourage carrying satchels stuffed with all of the reports the police had generated up to that moment. But every hour on the hour, for the rest of that night and on into the morning, one German soldier or another arrived to pick up the latest reports.

Louis found that he rather welcomed this punctuation to the hours: a soldier of the Reich turning up as regularly as clockwork, reminding him irresistibly of the little, painted, marching wooden figures on certain mechanical clocks. He smiled to himself as he imagined a wooden bird declaiming "cuckoo" each time one of the Germans appeared.

Each hour that passed was a victory for Louis Renault. Each search party that returned with no positive result to report was a triumph, although naturally he worked to make his face show the opposite reaction. He concentrated on acting impatient, angry, frustrated; on demonstrating all of the emotions he ought to be feeling if his story was true.

At around 5:30 a.m. Patrolman Levesque made his appearance at the station, as Louis had ordered him to do. The young man looked genuinely astonished on seeing the Central Commissariat's frenetic level of activity—unsurprisingly, since his captain had not told him the entire police force would be summoned back to duty.

Levesque's report on the results of his surveillance mission was brief and fairly unremarkable, but it gave Louis some comfort. About 11:30 Hauptmann Heinze had arrived by car at Consul-General Auer's villa in the Anfa district. Around an hour later Heinze departed, followed shortly afterward by Auer himself, heading into the city in one of the German Armistice Commission's cars. Lights in the villa remained on throughout the night, and there seemed considerable activity inside, but no one entered or left the building again until Auer returned at about 4:30.

That was all good news, Louis thought. Clearly the Germans had been up all night, scrambling to plug the holes in their metaphorical dike in the immediate aftermath of Major Strasser's murder. That was only to be expected. What Levesque's report meant to Louis was that no informant had turned up at the Gestapo's villa overnight. That meant, he hoped, that no one had brought the Consul-General news of Rick Blaine's actual whereabouts.

To Louis' relief, young Levesque made no ill-judged attempt to pass along a secret message to his captain, or to indicate by some potentially suspicious word or sign that his earlier mission had been a success. The very fact of Levesque's presence here, Louis thought, was the best evidence of his success. On some beach out there in the chill December night, Louis' car was sitting, waiting for its discovery to set into motion the next act in this play that Louis had written.

Another scene of the play, at least, began with the dawn. The Moroccan natives on duty at the station went on their breaks in order to perform their first prayer of the day. With the arrival of normal business hours, several of the French policemen went on a mission to the nearest bakery and returned bearing boxes loaded with bread, rolls and pastries for everyone on duty. And Lieutenant Casselle began expressing concern about the men being allowed to get some sleep.

Louis greeted the first two of such mentions by Casselle with impatient dismissals. On the third occasion he frowned grimly but said, "Very well, Vincent. You can be in charge of sending men off-shift, starting with those who have been on duty the longest. But only a squad or two at a time. And we cannot let ourselves get down to the numbers of a regular duty roster. We must still be able to demonstrate to the Germans that we are putting in extraordinary effort to catch Major Strasser's killer."

Despite this victory of his, Casselle did not yet look happy. He said in gloomy tones, "I suppose I cannot convince you to go off-duty yourself?"

Louis raised his eyebrows. "You suppose correctly," he answered. "I have no intention of going off duty until Mr. Blaine is in custody."

"We have no idea of how long that may be—" Casselle attempted.

"You cannot make the search's duration shorter by arguing this point with me. And the longer you argue, the longer it will be before any of the other men have the chance to get any sleep."

At that, Casselle saluted and went glumly on his way.

Louis listened to reports and read through their written equivalents. When he had no reports to review, he took to pacing around the large office space and chain-smoking his way through his cigarettes at a prodigious rate. He ran out of cigarettes before eight o'clock, and had to send a man up to his office to fetch the spare packet he kept in his desk.

He noticed that more and more of the men were surreptitiously eyeing him as he paced his way through the office. Clearly they shared Lieutenant Casselle's wish that the captain would just go home, and would stop ratcheting up the tension level of the proceedings.

Mentally, Louis smiled, telling himself that his performance was going well. The more of his own men he could convince that he was desperate to capture Rick Blaine, the more likelihood there was that the Germans would believe it, as well.

A middle-of-the-night telephone call to Mr. Patenaude, the examining magistrate, had set in motion the necessary procedure for a first-thing-in-the-morning inquest. It was a little before 8:30 when Patrolman Casemi, one of the Moroccan officers who'd been part of the squad that arrived at the airport in the aftermath of Strasser's death, drove Louis the short distance to the Place Administrative and the Palais de Justice. Just behind them followed, in a second police car, Lieutenant de Garmeux, Patrolman Levesque, and the two other members of that squad.

Sunrise had brought an opalescent morning light to the city around them. Louis thought, as he frequently did, of what a beautiful place Casablanca could be when one allowed oneself the leisure to notice its beauty.

He had another typical thought as he and the squad members walked inside the Palais de Justice, that airy, spacious monument to France's authority in North Africa. He wished, as always, that his workplace could be one of these classically elegant Neo-Moorish creations which had been all the rage among Casablanca's architects a couple of decades ago.

Louis enjoyed modern architecture when it soared upward to the heights, like his own beloved apartment building. But his workplace the Central Commissariat was not a building that could ever conceivably be described as "soaring."

Particularly when he was in a sour mood, the squat, blocky shape of the Commissariat building put Louis in mind of a gigantic toad. What made that image all the more unsavory was the thought that this toad was always ready to stick out its tongue and snap up some bugs for its dinner—with the bugs being personified by the hapless victims of the standard suspect round-ups. And if the Commissariat was a toad, then its one pretension to architectural beauty, the glass dome that crowned its lobby, looked like nothing so much as an odd round cap perched atop the toad's head.

This early in the morning, there was little activity within the Palais de Justice. Its monumental corridors seemed unnaturally quiet, particularly in contrast to the ceaseless activity they'd left behind them at the Central Commissariat. The footsteps of Louis and his men echoed hollowly about them.

Waiting for them in a small, ground-floor courtroom was Magistrate Patenaude, along with a pretty, brown-haired stenographer ready to transcribe their testimony into written form. Dr. Fabron was there to testify on his post-mortem examination of Major Strasser's body. Also present were the guard from the airport whom Louis had sent last night to fetch Victor Laszlo's luggage, and a cold-eyed young German officer.

Louis recognized that young man. His rank stripes showed him to be a _leutnant,_ and Louis remembered seeing him several times among Major Strasser's entourage. The _leutnant_ was clutching a little notebook and pencil. Clearly he was under orders to take detailed notes of these proceedings, in case the French officials attempted to cover up something in their transcript.

Louis cast a perfunctory smile at the brunette stenographer, who smiled charmingly back at him. He figured his failure to pay more prolonged attention to the girl would be taken as further proof that his thoughts were troubled and he was not fully himself.

That certainly seemed to be the message Dr. Fabron received. Frowning first at Louis, then at the stenographer, and then back at Louis again, the doctor greeted the prefect of police with, "How is your head?"

"It's fine," Louis told him in angry-sounding brusqueness. He hoped everyone who heard him would interpret that reply as meaning that his head really _did_ hurt, but he wasn't going to permit himself the weakness of admitting that it bothered him.

Louis was the first called to testify. Wanting to get through this as swiftly as he could, he gave a terse and unadorned account of his attempt to arrest Victor Laszlo, which had been interrupted by Richard Blaine brandishing a pistol.

"What was the make of the pistol?" the magistrate questioned.

"A Colt, I believe. I did not have the opportunity to examine it closely."

On went Louis' testimony as he told of sneaking in a surreptitious call under cover of telephoning the airport, to warn Major Strasser of Laszlo's impending escape. He briefly recounted being compelled to drive Blaine, Laszlo and Miss Lund out of town to the Casablanca Airport.

"When we arrived," Louis went on, "Mr. Blaine contrived to get the guard out of the way by ordering that I send him to fetch Mr. Laszlo's luggage. In the guard's absence I wrote the names of Mr. Laszlo and Miss Lund on the letters of transit, as Blaine instructed. It was only once Laszlo and Lund were aboard the 'plane, and the 'plane was already taxiing on the runway, that Major Strasser arrived.

"I was surprised to see him arrive alone. I had expected and hoped that my warning to him would cause the major to bring a squad of police along with him. Instead, he arrived without backup, and when I informed him that Laszlo was on the 'plane, he commenced telephoning the radio tower in order to halt the takeoff.

"Mr. Blaine, holding the pistol in his coat pocket, commanded the major to cease his telephone call."

"Did Blaine remove the pistol from his pocket at this time?" the magistrate inquired.

"He did not, but he said, 'I was willing to shoot Captain Renault and I'm willing to shoot you.'"

"Go on," the magistrate told him, with a nod.

"Major Strasser continued his call. Blaine said something along the lines of, 'Put the 'phone down, Major.' Strasser reached for the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his own pistol. Two gunshots sounded, almost in the same instant. Major Strasser fell backward without another word or move. The force of his fall pulled the telephone receiver from the machine; he was lying on his back with the receiver in his left hand and his Luger in his right. When I looked at Blaine, he had his pistol out; then he put it back into his coat pocket once more."

"Was there any sign that Strasser's shot had hit Blaine?"

"There was not. I believe his shot went wide. It was my impression that Blaine's bullet must have struck Major Strasser at the same instant as the major fired."

"You are certain that Blaine fired first?"

"I heard the report of the second shot immediately after the first; they sounded almost as one. I believe that the shot I heard first came from my left, where Mr. Blaine stood." Louis went on, "As Blaine put the pistol back in his pocket, we heard a car approaching. Blaine warned me, 'Be careful what you say, Captain. Remember I have seven bullets left.' For that reason, when the squad arrived, I made no attempt to place Mr. Blaine under arrest."

For now, at least, that was the end of Louis' testimony. The rest of his fairy tale was irrelevant to the details of Major Strasser's death.

Dr. Fabron testified next. He said, "As you will see from the autopsy report, Major Heinrich Strasser died as the result of a gunshot wound to the heart. A .32 caliber bullet shattered his left fifth rib, passed through the left ventricle and struck his right shoulder blade. The bone was chipped but it halted the course of the bullet, which remained lodged in the victim's chest. Further details will be found in my report."

"The bullet was consistent with having been fired from the pistol Mr. Blaine has been reported as using?"

"Yes, a .32 bullet is used in many models of Colt."

Magistrate Patenaude inquired with no obvious change in his expression or his voice, "It is also used in many of the firearms carried by the Municipal Police?"

Louis stared sharply at Patenaude, disagreeably startled by the question. He wondered for a moment if Patenaude was in the pay of the Germans. But he told himself that really, it was a reasonable question for the magistrate to ask. If Patenaude didn't ask it in the formal setting of the inquest, the Germans were bound to ask it later. Better to get the issue dealt with now, and to demonstrate that all of their officials were acting with due diligence, than to leave themselves open to the Germans' insinuating accusations.

"Yes," said Fabron, ".32 caliber bullets are used in the FN 1900 and several other firearms which are those most typically issued to the police."

"Captain Renault," Magistrate Patenaude asked, "were you armed last night?"

Louis answered truthfully, "No, sir, I was not. It is not my habit to go armed."

Patenaude's gaze passed beyond Louis to the five men of the squad, seated in the row of chairs behind him awaiting their turn to testify. Naturally, they were all wearing their holstered side-arms, just as they had been last night at the airport. The magistrate ordered, "When we are finished here, all members of the squad will proceed upstairs to Forensics and leave their weapons for examination." He went on, with a pointed glance toward the German officer taking notes, "Analysis of these weapons and their bullets will enable us to definitively answer the question of whether Major Strasser was in fact shot by one of the police."

Magistrate Patenaude was apparently determined, in this instance, to leave no stone unturned. His next question to Dr. Fabron was, "Am I correct in believing that the bullet you recovered from the victim's chest was not compatible with having been fired from Major Strasser's own weapon?"

"That is correct," the physician confirmed. "Even without going into such details as the bullet's trajectory and the appearance of the wound—which you will find discussed in my report—the bullet which killed Strasser could not have been fired from the Luger found in Strasser's hand."

The inquest continued with the testimony of Lieutenant de Garmeux, and after him, all the members of the squad. Each man's testimony took more-or-less identical form to that of those before him. Each one declared that when they arrived at the airport they'd seen the major lying dead beside the telephone with his Luger in one hand and the 'phone receiver in the other, and they had seen no sign that Captain Renault had any weapon with him. Several also testified to noticing that the American, Mr. Blaine, had his right hand in his overcoat pocket. Those who'd carried Strasser's body to the car added the testimony that when they'd lifted the body, it was still warm.

The only testimony remaining was that of Travere, the airport guard. Travere confirmed the arrival, at around five minutes before 10:00, of Captain Renault, Mr. Blaine, Victor Laszlo and Ilsa Lund, the latter two being passengers on the 10:00 flight to Lisbon. Travere further confirmed that he had gone with Laszlo to fetch his luggage, as Captain Renault had ordered. At precisely 10:00, he stated, he had been in the airport office just starting to brew some coffee, and he had seen through the window a car driving at a great rate of speed in through the airport's gate. He knew at what time the automobile had arrived, because he'd glanced at the clock and remarked to his colleague in the office that if whoever was in that car believed they would catch the Lisbon 'plane, they were sadly mistaken. Another car, also driven at high speed, followed perhaps a minute later, but this time he had not looked at the clock. Travere had started toward the hangar then, to investigate what was going on with the two speeding cars. Before he reached the hangar, one of the cars had passed him again at a much slower speed, heading back out of the airport. Lieutenant de Garmeux of the Municipal Police was approaching him on foot and said he needed to use the telephone in the office. When Travere pointed out there was a 'phone in the hangar building, the lieutenant told him that the 'phone in the hangar was broken. Travere went with de Garmeux back to the office, where the lieutenant telephoned the police station and reported that Major Strasser had been murdered.

Magistrate Patenaude inquired whether at any point Travere had heard any gunshots.

"No, sir, I didn't. But that really isn't surprising. There was a lot of noise at the time, from the 'plane taking off."

Travere's testimony brought the inquest to its end, although from the German lieutenant's expression, he believed Patenaude should somehow have succeeded in eliciting a great deal more useful information.

Remaining faithful to his role, Louis did not even bid goodbye to the pretty young stenographer as he left the courtroom. The squad members went upstairs to turn in their side-arms to Forensics. Louis, meanwhile, lit a cigarette and smoked ill-temperedly while pacing around the grand, gracious lobby. As he was doing this, Dr. Fabron stopped off in the lobby to make one last desultory attempt at peddling some pills.

"You are sure you don't want any headache medicine …?"

"I am sure. My headache will miraculously disappear when we have captured Richard Blaine."

"Hmm," came Fabron's dour reply. "Well, good luck with that, then."

While he paced, smoked and awaited the squad members' return, Louis contemplated an annoying chain of thoughts. He thought, _We should have left Rick's Colt in the car._

If they had, then when the car was discovered it would contain the proof that Rick Blaine was indeed Major Strasser's killer. Forensics would compare a bullet fired from that Colt with the one Fabron had recovered from Strasser's chest, and there would be all the proof that anyone could wish. In addition, the fact that Blaine had abandoned his weapon would seem a further indication that he had departed this life through the avenue of suicide.

But it was hopelessly too late for them to employ that strategy now. Any attempt that Louis made to tamper with the evidence would almost certainly lead to his fraud being discovered. For Rick's sake and for his own, he knew he must have no contact with Rick today, and no contact with the abandoned car before somebody else discovered it. If he tried something so ill-advised as attempting to plant any evidence, their entire fragile house of cards was liable to come tumbling onto his head.

Back at the Central Commissariat, Lieutenant Casselle launched a new campaign to pressure his boss into some kind of sensible behavior. He first made another stab at suggesting that Louis should go home. When that had earned him only a disgusted look, Casselle settled for the less ambitious project of convincing his captain to go upstairs to his office.

Louis found he didn't even need to act when he showed distaste for this suggestion. It occurred to him again that the role he was playing was all too close to being the truth.

When he contemplated heading up to his office, he realized he felt a dismay that was not far removed from panic.

He had never been claustrophobic. But he thought claustrophobia must be close to the sensation he felt now as he thought of going to his office.

It wasn't the fact of being actually enclosed by walls that bothered him. It was the thought of being closed away from what was happening; of not being able to constantly monitor the search's progress—or, hopefully, its lack thereof—in the expressions of all the men around him. He thought of himself being closed away up there and not being able to know it the instant a 'phone call came in. He pictured himself alone in his office, surrounded by his fear, dreading with each moment to learn that his subterfuge had been discovered—and that Richard Blaine had been found.

There was barely any pretense in it as Louis imparted a lost and shaky sound to his voice. "I can't, Vincent," he confided to Casselle. "I can't be up there just now. I'm sorry." He allowed himself a pathetically brave smile. "I promise you, I will do my best to behave myself down here. I will stay at the desk and just read through reports. I will read each report twice if I have to! I just—" he looked impatient at his own weakness, shook his head and started that sentence again. "I just need to be here."

His real distress must have been clear to Casselle, even though it did not have quite the same cause as Casselle believed. The lieutenant sighed and said, "Very well, My Captain." He hesitated and then went on, "You will let me know, Captain, won't you—please?—if I can do anything to help you?"

"You are helping me already," Louis told him quietly. "But—thank you."

At around 10:00, a telephone call was put through to the 'phone at the desk Louis had commandeered. That desk was ordinarily occupied by a member of the Vice squad, but Louis had no concerns about evicting the Vice officers for a day or so. Vice and Fraud and every other department should today have put aside all their regular duties, to help with the immediate need to search for Richard Blaine.

The telephone call was from Magistrate Patenaude. He said to Louis, "I just wanted to let you know I've completed my findings. It's official, now: the finding of the inquest is that Major Heinrich Strasser met his death as the result of a gunshot wound to the heart, the bullet having been fired by one Richard Blaine, American. I've issued the arrest warrant. So now all those searches you boys have been conducting since last night can have the full force of the law behind them."

Dryly, Louis remarked, "That's a great weight off my mind."

The magistrate continued, "My next call will be to Fabron, to let him know he can now release Strasser's body to the Germans. That ought to make him happy—and make the Germans happy, as well. Fabron told me Herr Heinze has been 'phoning him every hour on the hour asking when the major's body will be released."

"I'm glad someone will be happy," said Louis. "Thanks for letting me know."

About half an hour later, Hauptmann Friedrich Heinze reappeared at the Central Commissariat.

Louis was aware that the impression he got from looking at Heinze was not realistic. All the same, it looked to him as though Heinze had somehow lost weight since the last time he'd been here, just those few hours before. His jowls, seeming to droop more loosely than usual, caused him to resemble a miserable, abused basset hound. Louis would have thought the man looked utterly defeated, except for the bitter stubbornness he could see in Heinze's gaze.

Nearly crushed though he might be by the events of these past twelve hours, Hauptmann Friedrich Heinze was still on a quest to avenge his murdered commander.

Heinze's arrival enabled Lieutenant Casselle to achieve one of his current main goals. In order to meet with the German officer in private, Louis finally decided to head upstairs to his office. The two of them climbed the one flight of stairs side by side. Heinze's heavy, dispirited footfalls sounded as audible versions of the look on his face.

Louis settled into his desk chair and Heinze planted himself in one of the chairs beside the desk. Louis couldn't help being struck by uncomfortably ironic memories. He had the feeling the exact same thing was happening to Hauptmann Heinze.

For his part, Louis was thinking that the last person to sit in that chair where Heinze was sitting now had been Mr. Richard Blaine. Just yesterday afternoon, Rick sat there and pulled the wool over Louis' eyes with the claim that he and Ilsa Lund meant to run away together—and that he would help Louis to arrest the great Victor Laszlo.

As for Heinze, Louis imagined he must be thinking of the many recent times Major Strasser had visited this office. He guessed Heinze's thoughts were conjuring up the dead man's forceful presence. Was he hearing the smooth tones of Strasser's voice? Was he imagining the major's small, sneering smile, and the chilly gleam of his eyes?

As they'd walked into his office, Louis' first impulse had been to offer Heinze a drink. He had, of course, immediately checked that impulse, reminding himself of what time it was. But now he thought he might as well make use of the impulse as a means of launching their conversation.

"I was going to offer you a drink just now," he confided to the German, with a weary little smile, "until I remembered it's barely 10:30 in the morning. But perhaps you'd care for one anyway? I suppose that the need to wait until noon loses some of its importance when one has been up all night."

"No," Hauptmann Heinze answered tersely. "Thank you." To Louis' offer of a cigarette, Heinze made the same reply.

Louis helped himself. While he was tamping his cigarette against the case, he asked, remembering Heinze's comment about needing to write to Strasser's wife, "Do you know the Strassers socially, outside of work?"

"Only slightly," Heinze told him. "I have been to a few dinner parties at their house. But even knowing Frau Strasser so slightly, it made having to write to her all the more painful…" Heinze's eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together in impatience. "I did not come here to talk to you about this. I assume you have not yet discovered Mr. Blaine's whereabouts?"

"Unfortunately, you are correct," Louis answered. "I assure you that when we do, you will be the first to learn of it."

Heinze did not answer. He only looked at Louis with a gaze holding anger or distaste, or perhaps both.

"You have kept up-to-date with our reports?" Louis inquired.

"I have. Captain," the German went on, finally getting to the point, "there are questions I must ask you about the circumstances surrounding Major Strasser's death."

"Ask your questions, please," Louis said. "I will answer them as best I can."

"In the inquest this morning you stated that you were unarmed last night, as is your custom. Why did you not go armed when you went to arrest Victor Laszlo, one of the most dangerous enemies of the Reich?"

Louis made a shrugging sort of gesture with his hand that held the cigarette, sending a trail of smoke twirling above the desk. "I simply did not think of it. I admit that sounds foolish now. I had seen no indication that Mr. Laszlo would resort to violence, and I suppose I believed that I could handle him, if he did. And I also believed that Rick Blaine was on my side, and would assist me if I required it." He took care to add a bitter note into his voice on that last sentence.

"You also did not bring any back-up to assist you in making the arrest. Why is that? To arrest a man who has eluded us across half of Europe, I would have thought that having a squad of police at hand would have been useful."

Louis took a puff on his cigarette and said, "It certainly would have been. I'm afraid, my dear Hauptmann, I have no other explanation apart from my own hubris. I believed I could capture Mr. Laszlo on my own. I wanted it to be a feather in my cap—and I did not wish to have to share that feather with anyone."

"And that is why you did not inform Major Strasser of your plans."

"It is. I wished it to be a surprise; a present I could make to Major Strasser all metaphorically gift-wrapped."

Anger vibrated in Hauptmann Heinze's voice as he said, "So you are telling me it is because of your pride—your hubris, as you say—that Major Strasser is dead?"

Louis said steadily, "I must bear some of the blame. But so must Major Strasser himself. I did all I could to warn him of what was going on, in that brief telephone call. I could not be more specific, with Mr. Blaine standing next to me aiming a pistol at my heart. I believed Major Strasser would understand enough and would bring police backup with him to the airport. And he did summon a squad, but unfortunately he did not wait for them. His impatience, and perhaps his pride as well, contributed to causing his death, along with my pride. I imagine that, just like me, he wanted to be able to claim the credit of single-handedly capturing Victor Laszlo. His eagerness for that achievement meant that he did not wait the minute or so that would have been required for him to rendezvous with the squad. Had Major Strasser arrived at the airport with a squad of police at his heels, the outcome would have been very different. But he did not. And we both know what happened, as a result."

Hauptmann Friedrich Heinze stared at Louis, his beady eyes grim, piercing and decidedly unimpressed. "But that squad of police did arrive a minute later," Heinze said. "At which point you could have taken the opportunity to arrest Mr. Blaine for the major's murder."

Louis took another puff on his cigarette and stared back at the German. "As I stated in my report and at the inquest, between the time of the shooting and that of the squad's arrival Blaine threatened me, reminding me of the pistol in his pocket. I am sure that if I had ordered his arrest, he would eventually have been captured or killed. But I am also certain that he would have shot me first, and he might also have succeeded in shooting several of my men. I am sorry, Herr Hauptmann. Despite the respect I felt for Major Strasser, I did not respect him so much that I wanted to die with him, or that I wished to sacrifice the lives of any of my men. You Germans may feel that we should bring back the values of the _Niebelungenleid_ ; that the deaths of great men require their followers to immolate themselves on the funeral pyre, but we Frenchmen prefer to be more pragmatic. I chose not to die with the major, but instead to live and to hopefully bring his murderer to justice."

"I see. And what do you believe is the prospect of being able to do that?"

Louis permitted himself a bitter sigh. "I admit the prospect looks less rosy with each hour that passes. But I still believe we will find him, though that has not happened as swiftly as I had hoped. He can't elude us forever. Sooner or later he will make a mistake, or someone will betray him. We will capture him, Herr Hauptmann; of that I have no doubt."

Hauptmann Heinze waited for what seemed an exceedingly long time before answering. "Very well," he said at last. "I very much hope that you are right. And it seems there is nothing more I can expect of you at this time. Or anything else that I must ask you." Heinze gave a quiet sigh that might have been one of relief. "And how," he said, "I think that I will have that cigarette, thank you."

"Of course," Louis said graciously. He smiled, proffered the cigarette and reached over to light it for the hauptmann, although he mentally grudged the gift. His supply of cigarettes here at the office was running perilously low.

Even once Hauptmann Heinze had departed, Louis found that he was going to continue making Lieutenant Casselle happy. His conversation with the German left him feeling worn and dispirited—although that could also be traceable to the fact that he'd now been awake for something along the lines of 27 hours straight. In a complete about-face from how he had felt a couple of hours before, he found he no longer had any inclination to remain on show for the rest of the police force. Staying in the office a while would give him a break from his never-ending theatrical performance.

He 'phoned downstairs to announce that he'd be remaining in his office, and to order that all new reports be sent up to him. Most of those reports, he read while standing at his window, overlooking the Central Commissariat's lobby dome and the uninspiring view to the jail across the street.

Somehow he felt too restless to actually spend much time sitting at his desk. In the surprisingly fragile emotional state in which he found himself, he felt that ensconcing himself at the desk would be going one step too far. It seemed as if that would mean taking the final move to cut himself off from the search for Richard Blaine.

Along with the ongoing reports from search parties—all of them, thankfully, negative reports—were the reports on those persons apprehended in last night's suspect roundups. And amongst these, a few reports were marked with asterisks discreetly penciled at the top right corner.

That was the technique used by Casablanca's Municipal Police to indicate that the report's subject was a woman in whose case Captain Renault might wish to interest himself. Most of the policemen confined themselves to just one asterisk, but a few who'd been with the force the longest and who felt they were good judges of their captain's tastes would occasionally indicate an especially promising prospect by inscribing two or even three asterisks.

If there'd been any three-asterisk reports amongst those he read that day, Louis might have noted down the names and contact information of the women in question. But there were none, and Louis told himself that today he shouldn't bother taking action on any one or two-asterisk reports. Ordinarily he would promptly interview several of the women so indicated, in order to judge their potential for himself. Today, however, was decidedly not the day to indulge in such diversions.

He already had a significant backlog of ladies whose information he had previously collected. He was at no risk of running out. And it really didn't fit with the role he was playing for him to pay even residual attention to his usual preoccupations. Today he should seem too distraught by the Blaine-and-Strasser situation for him to make the least effort at expanding his collection of attractive refugees who would be amenable to the prefect of police giving them a hand with their difficulties.

He had gone through the latest crop of reports and was absently watching seagulls and pigeons strutting around their respective territories atop the jail building's roof. The next quiet knocking at his office door did not announce the arrival of more reports. Instead it was Lieutenant Casselle, inquiring whether the captain wished some lunch.

Louis glanced at his watch and saw to his surprise that it was after one o'clock. He murmured, "Is it really that late?"

Doing his best not to sound worried, Casselle said, "We can order something for you from Marcel's," referring to the café just down the street. "Or, naturally," he hurriedly added, "from anywhere you like."

Louis didn't think he felt particularly hungry. Even if he did, he would not admit it. Eating regular meals seemed too prosaic an activity for the obsessed and desperate man he was currently supposed to be.

"Not just now, Vincent, thank you," Louis told his aide, in what he intended to be a vague and distracted tone of voice. "I think I'll go downstairs again for a while. I need to stretch my legs. Is anything left from breakfast?"

"Nothing much. I think a few rolls," Casselle answered, looking predictably dismayed at the notion that the boss would again be in their midst.

Back downstairs in the central office, Louis fished up one of the rolls which was lying forlornly at the bottom of a nearly-empty box. Casselle proved yet again that he was a good man to have around by conjuring up a hot cup of coffee, which he handed to the captain before Louis even thought of asking for one. Munching his roll and swigging coffee, Louis stood beside the desk of Sergeant Parigot of Vice, Parigot surreptitiously eyeing him and doubtless wondering if the captain would once again evict him from his desk.

 _My God,_ Louis thought, _maybe I really should get some lunch._ It hadn't occurred to him what a depleted state he was letting himself get into, until he noticed he was gulping down coffee like a dying man who believed the coffee might be an antidote. He had drained the cup, had nearly finished the roll and was considering returning to the box to dig around for another one, when the telephone rang at Sergeant Allard's desk across the room.

A moment later Allard stood up. He looked around for Louis and then yelled, "Captain! You'll want to take this call." The tone of his voice left no doubt that there had been a break-through in their case.

 _It's about time,_ thought Louis. He had begun to wonder how far afield Levesque had driven that car. Perhaps, he had ill-temperedly speculated, the kid had abandoned his captain's car on some beach at Algiers.

Louis left the remains of his roll on Sergeant Parigot's desk and strode over to Sergeant Allard. As he drew near and reached for the receiver, Allard told him, "The car's been found."


	3. Chapter 3: Friday, December 5, Afternoon

**The Unusual Suspect**

 **A _Casablanca_ Fanfiction**

 **Chapter Three:**

 **Friday, December 5, 1941: Afternoon**

"This is Captain Renault."

"Sir," came the excited voice on the 'phone, "this is Patrolman Ouhaddou. I got home a little while ago; Lieutenant Casselle sent me off-duty. I had a 'phone call just now from my brother-in-law. He's taken the family out to spend the afternoon at Sidi Abderrahmane Beach. As soon as they got there they saw a car far down on the beach, below the tide-line. He said there were kids playing all over the car. My brother-in-law and my nephews went to investigate. They shooed the kids away and saw that the vehicle is a police car! My brother-in-law knew we had to be informed straight away. He left his sons guarding the car and ran over to La Reserve, where they let him use the telephone."

That made a striking picture in Louis' imagination: Patrolman Ouhaddou's brother-in-law, out-of-breath and dressed for an afternoon at the beach, running inside one of Casablanca's most exclusive restaurants and demanding to use their 'phone.

"My brother-in-law got the license number," Ouhaddou went on, "since he knew I would want to know it." There was a brief pause, presumably while Ouhaddou scrabbled around for the notebook, scrap of paper or wherever he'd written the number his brother-in-law told him. "It's 2539 M2."

"That is my car, all right," Louis said with a sigh.

"Fadoul—my brother-in-law—said the car has been there through at least one high tide. It's got water inside it; he says he thinks it's sure to need some work before it can be driven again."

"I presume," Louis said heavily, "your brother-in-law and his family saw no one there who seemed to be associated with the car—no one apart from the children who were playing on it."

"The children were the only ones he mentioned, sir. He did say the driver's side door is open, but of course he doesn't know if it's the children who left it that way, or someone else."

"Yes," said Louis, sighing again. "Thank you, Ouhaddou. And thanks to your brother-in-law, as well. If he has gone back to guarding the car, I will soon be able to thank him in person."

Replacing the receiver on its cradle, Louis issued his next orders, all the while wondering what emotional state he should appear to be in. Should he already have an inkling of the dreadful suspicion that Rick had abandoned the car in order to take a one-way stroll into the waves?

Sergeant Rachane, another of the Moroccan officers, was the one who drove Louis to the beach, since Patrolman Casemi was now off-duty. A second patrol car followed them. Presumably the break-down truck that Louis had summoned was not far behind.

During that brief ride to the beach, Louis chided himself for his surprise that it had taken this long for the car to be discovered.

He thought, _I forgot that today is Friday._

Today just as on most Fridays, a large proportion of Casablanca's Muslim populace would have attended mid-day services at the mosques, and now they would have the afternoon off-work. It was the traditional once-a-week holiday; a time for families to spend together in activities such as a trip to the beach. It made perfect sense that the beaches of Casablanca had been more-or-less deserted this morning. Then, come the afternoon, family holiday parties flocked to the coast in droves—and a few of them encountered the bizarre sight of a car belonging to the Casablanca Municipal Police, stranded amidst the rocks and waves of Sidi Abderrahmane Beach.

A bizarre sight, it decidedly was. You could see it from the road, if you knew to look for it, although the tan paint of its body was close to being the same color as the sand. As he was parking at the roadside, Sergeant Rachane said, "There it is, Captain, look."

Louis murmured, "Yes." While getting out from the passenger seat, he was still staring at that other car: the car he had driven just last night, before his life metamorphosed into this surreal fairy tale he had created.

"Surreal," he thought, was indeed the appropriate word for this. He thought the image of that abandoned police car, juxtaposed with the glittering ocean and the blinding white of the ancient buildings clustered on Sidi Abderrahmane Island, looked like some crazy modern painting. If he had any talent in the visual arts, he might try painting the scene himself.

How, he wondered, had young Levesque even managed to get the car so far down the beach? He thought Levesque had to know this beach like the back of his hand. Maybe he spent all of his off-duty hours here.

As he and Rachane hiked down the easy slope from the road, with the five other squad members at their heels, Louis was even surprised that Levesque had succeeded in driving onto the beach at all instead of wrecking here on the hillside, or at least popping one or two tires.

Louis imagined the scene that must have taken place here in last night's blackness. He imagined his car, its headlights cutting ghostly twin paths across the black expanse of beach. He saw the car poking along at the pace of a crippled snail while Levesque threaded the obstacle course between all the beach's jutting arms of rock. And then, finally, there he must have been, at the finish line at last, with the waves of the Atlantic slapping around the tires. He would have switched off the car, opened the driver's door and then—what? He'd scrambled over the hood, maybe, so he could get to the car's right side and to the nearest spur of rock, his route off the beach without having to walk through the sand. He had to have the sure-footedness of a mountain goat, if he'd made his way back to the road along all those rock spurs without at least a few incidents involving him falling on his ass.

Levesque must have left his bike up there by the road. Endeavoring to clamber along all these rocks in the dark while hauling a bicycle was just too ludicrously foolhardy, even for a kid like him. But maybe he had unhooked the bike's headlamp and taken it along with him, to light his path over the rocks. Louis wondered uneasily whether, if Levesque had done that, somebody might have seen him.

 _No,_ he told himself. _You don't need to worry about that._ La Reserve was too far up the coast for the restaurant to command a clear view of Sidi Abderrahmane Beach. Anyhow, it had been long after curfew when Levesque was here; there should have been nobody at La Reserve to see anything. By the same token, no one should have been on the road. That left, as the only somewhat likely potential witnesses, the inhabitants of Sidi Abderrahmane Island.

Had any of them, in the middle of last night, happened to look across to the mainland and see the headlights of a car creeping out into the water—and then a lone light bobbing back toward the road? And if they had seen all of that, would that information ever reach the many people whom Louis would prefer not to hear about it?

 _Will you please stop borrowing trouble, Louis?_ he demanded of himself. He didn't even know that any of the island's mystics, magicians and fortune-tellers had witnessed a ghostly light bobbing around the beach at night. It was asinine to make himself sick with worry over something that might not have happened.

They were reaching the stretch of beach where the sand was damp. Louis grimaced slightly as specks of sand started adhering themselves to his shoes. Ahead, Ouhaddou's brother-in-law waited standing to the left of the car, while two teenaged boys perched on the spur of rock to its right.

The receding tide was almost at the point of leaving the car behind. The highest-reaching waves still were dancing playfully around the front tires. Louis halted a few paces up the beach from the car, just short of getting his shoes wet.

Ouhaddou's brother-in-law and his two sons were all barefoot, with their trousers rolled up to their knees. The man cast an embarrassed-looking glance downward at his bare feet. Then, clearly deciding he wasn't going to worry about addressing the prefect of police without being formally dressed, he made his way through the sand to a point closer to Louis.

Louis greeted him, "You are Patrolman Ouhaddou's brother-in-law?"

"Yes, Captain. My name is Fadoul Sahiri, and these are my sons, Fadoul and Chaddad." He indicated the boys on the rock, who got to their feet.

"Tell me about your discovery of the car. When did you first notice it?"

"We arrived here at the beach at probably about ten minutes past one, and started setting up our picnic things. We noticed the car almost immediately. Children were clambering all over it—they looked like barnacles on a rock. My sons and I hiked over here and chased the children away. As soon as I saw that it's a police car I knew the force had to be notified; that's when I ran to use the nearest 'phone. I left the boys keeping watch; they've made sure no one else has gone near the car since we got here—although the only ones who have tried to do so have been a few more kids."

Louis nodded. The surprising thought struck him that Fadoul Sahiri the elder looked rather like a Moroccan version of Louis himself. Sahiri was slightly taller, and naturally he was a bit darker-skinned. But they seemed around the same age, had the same build and the same facial shape. They might have been consciously attempting to copy each other in the shape and size of their moustaches.

On the whole, Louis thought he was glad to be an unmarried, womanizing prefect of police instead of whatever Sahiri was—presumably a man with a respectable but unremarkable job, and a wife and goodness knows how many kids to provide for. All the same, it gave him an odd feeling to see Sahiri stand there looking like nearly the embodiment of himself, if he had made certain different choices and sent his life down some other path.

Louis asked Sahiri, "The door has been standing open like this since you first saw the car?"

"That's right. I asked some of the kids if they'd opened the door; they said they hadn't. Of course there's no guarantee they told the truth, but I think they probably did. With the inside of the car as wet as it is, my guess is it's been sitting here with the door open through at least one high tide, probably more."

Louis glanced to Sergeant Rachane, standing to his left and slightly behind him, to include the sergeant in his next question. He asked, "And high tide was, what? About an hour ago?"

"A little more than that, I think, sir," Sergeant Rachane said.

Sahiri agreed, "Yes, it was at just a few minutes past noon."

Louis nodded contemplatively and murmured, "Which places the previous high tide between midnight and one."

Again Sahiri narrowed down the time, "About 12:45 or thereabouts, Captain."

Louis grimaced again and gave a small sigh. He would have to get his shoes at least somewhat wet, because he needed to open the trunk of the car. He took the key from his pocket and walked up to the car, trying to ignore the wet sand that was squelching around his shoes.

Louis unlocked the trunk, opened it and stared grimly down at its contents. Of course those contents were no surprise to him, since he had known perfectly well what would be there: two smallish, unremarkable brown suitcases.

Sergeant Rachane walked up beside him and joined him in gazing at the luggage. "Are those Mr. Blaine's suitcases, sir?" Rachane asked quietly.

'Yes," Louis said in a heavy, flat voice. "Patrolman Levesque loaded them in there last night."

As though of one mind, Louis, the sergeant and Fadoul Sahiri Sr. looked out toward the sea. Sergeant Rachane said, "Then, if Blaine's things are still here …"

The sergeant interrupted himself and cast a hesitant, awkward look at his captain, presumably remembering that the American Blaine was—or had been—Captain Renault's friend.

Louis allowed his gaze to flicker distractedly over the beach and its varied handfuls of humanity. Everyone was steering well clear of the stranded car now that the police had arrived. Brightly striped deckchairs were scattered about, along with beach umbrellas that looked like gigantic mushrooms. The predictable thought came into Louis' head that if the umbrellas were mushrooms, that should turn the people beneath them into the adorable elves and pixies who caper about in certain saccharine children's book illustrations. Speaking of children, there were multiple kids racing up and down the beach, playing tag with the waves.

Most of the people Louis saw were wearing modern, European clothing, but here and there he noticed groups of women draped in the traditional veils and robes, clustered together chatting and keeping an eye on their children. An occasional brief patch of color surrounded by an expanse of bare skin marked those few people who out of bravery, stubbornness or ostentation were determined to prance about in their bathing costumes, despite the crisp bite of the day's December air. Louis wondered how many of those people actually intended to immerse themselves in seawater, and how many just wanted to show off their bared bodies to whomever they hoped to impress.

Off to the left was Sidi Abderrahamane Island. With the tide now on its way out, a few of the hardiest or most desperate believers were already hiking out to the island through the slowly retreating water. It would be hours yet before anyone could make that pilgrimage without getting wet, but Louis could see three people slogging toward the island. One was so far from him, so near to the island already, that Louis couldn't tell if the silhouetted form belonged to a man or a woman. The second, he felt pretty sure was a man. He was carrying some large burden, and from the way the man walked, Louis thought the bundle in his arms was probably a child.

The third pilgrim aiming for the island was a woman in the traditional robes. She moved with painful slowness as she picked her way over slimy rocks, wading through knee-deep water. Louis grimaced at the thought of how sopping wet her clothing must be by now. He hoped she would manage to avoid slipping and falling.

He stared at those three distant seekers, and at the island with its low, white buildings beyond. He wondered which of those buildings was Sidi Abderrahmane's tomb. Louis asked, still gazing at the pilgrims and the island, "Is there a specific type of ailment that Saint Abderrahmane specializes in curing?"

Both Sahiri and Sergeant Rachane hesitated to answer. The sergeant glanced warily at Louis. Probably he suspected his boss of mocking the Moroccans' religious traditions as superstitious practices. Louis hoped Sergeant Rachane did not see such mockery on his face. He didn't think Rachane should; he thought all that anyone saw on his face just now should be weary sadness.

Rachane said in a careful, noncommittal tone of voice, "People pray to him on general matters, but there are probably some types of request that are more frequent than others. I believe people particularly come here with prayers for relief of certain mental diseases, and seeking assistance with love affairs that have gone wrong."

To his surprise, Louis felt the emotional equivalent of a kick in the gut.

"Really?" he asked dispiritedly. "Isn't that just excruciatingly appropriate."

Rachane cast a questioning glance at him, but the captain had no intention of answering that question. Instead, Louis said, "I have seen enough here." He turned around and saw all the members of the squad that had accompanied him standing there expectantly, awaiting his orders.

To Corporal Belliraj, who stood a little ahead of the rest of them, he said, "You'll take charge of the operation here. When the breakdown truck arrives, supervise getting this car off the beach and back to the Commissariat. Then"—Louis allowed his gaze to flicker distractedly to the island for a moment—"we'll have to search the island. Do it discreetly, causing as little disruption as possible. We're not here to cause trouble for the people over there; we're here to find Richard Blaine, and arrest him if we find him. I don't want you arresting anyone there except for Blaine." He gave a brief, humorless laugh and continued, "Frankly, I'll be surprised if you find him over there, but we have to look. If we don't, I'll be the one having to explain to the Germans why we didn't."

"Yes, my captain," said the corporal, saluting.

Allowing himself a weary sigh, Louis turned to Sergeant Rachane again. "Sergeant," he said quietly, "I'd be obliged if you'd drive me back to the Commissariat now." He had briefly considered driving himself back and leaving the sergeant there with the rest of the squad, but he'd decided he ought to keep himself under the gaze of others as much as possible today. In case the Germans were nosing around about this later, he wanted a witness to be able to tell them that Captain Renault had been acting depressed by the discovery of his car on the beach, and he'd had no opportunity to sneak off on his own and do anything mysterious.

Back at the Central Commissariat, Louis had commands to give Sergeant Allard. After briskly summarizing the story of the police car abandoned on the beach, he ordered, "I want you to work on this with the Port Police. Check the charts of the ocean currents; find out the locations where a body that entered the ocean at Sidi Abderrahmane Beach would be most likely to wash up. And of course," he added grimly, "find out from them if they believe such a body would be likely to wash up along our coast at all. If they and you can pinpoint probable locations, we will send squads there to search."

From the moment he'd arrived back at the station, Lieutenant Casselle had been hovering nearby. Casselle was watching his captain with a flustered, overprotective air, like a father watching his son in some athletic performance and worrying that the boy has taken on too much for the good of his health.

Louis decided it was time to give his aide some relatively good news. He said to Casselle, "Before you ask, Lieutenant: I think I will go up to my office now and take a brief rest. Do not hesitate to awaken me, however. I expect you to notify me immediately if there is any development in the case."

Casselle's concern seemed only slightly mollified. "Yes, Captain," he said, "but are you certain you would not rather go home? You would still be only a telephone call away, if anything develops."

Louis smiled wearily up at his lieutenant. "Better take what you can get, Vincent," he advised. "If you push me too far on this, I might just decide not to take a nap after all."

With that, Louis made his way upstairs to ensconce himself on the leather sofa in his office.

Popular gossip around Casablanca—among people who did not actually know the prefect of police—doubtless cast that couch as the location where Captain Renault engaged in all manner of titillating activities with the young lovelies he lured into his clutches. That, naturally, was nonsense. Anyone who knew Louis as a person, rather than simply as a subject of gossip, ought to be aware that he would never commit actions in such poor taste as undertaking amorous adventures in his office.

Certainly he interviewed women here, to assess their prospects. But if those prospects were good, he only followed up on them in the comfort of his own apartment.

If he were the type to take offense, he would be offended by the suggestion that a liaison with him would be brief enough to make his office a practical location for it.

Besides, he couldn't stand the idea of possibly getting his office couch dirty.

Louis probably got a little sleep that afternoon, although he wasn't entirely certain of that. Most of that time, he thought, he spent in a half-waking daze. The images running through his mind seemed vivid and strange enough to be dreams, though they were little more than his memories of the beach with their colors re-cast in hallucinatory brightness: a crazed tapestry of blazing white walls, bathing suits and beach umbrellas.

He was startled into full wakefulness by the sound of knocking on his office door. Louis propelled himself into a sitting position, glancing at the clock on the wall which showed that it had just gone 3:30. Lieutenant Casselle's voice sounded through the door, "I apologize for disturbing you, Captain. Miss Bénatar is here and would like to meet with you."

"Of course," Louis said, "just a moment." Launching himself off the couch, he hurried to the mirror hanging beside the door. He smoothed down his hair, did some infinitesimal straightening of his eyebrows and his moustache, and was disagreeably reminded of the fact that he hadn't shaved since yesterday evening—since just before he had set out for Rick's, where he'd thought he was going to arrest Victor Laszlo.

It was not that he felt a particular need to look his best for Hélène Bénatar; nothing besides his wish to _always_ look his best, no matter who was there to see him. Miss Bénatar had almost no attractiveness for him, apart from the residual attractiveness nearly every woman possessed simply by virtue of being a woman. With her weather-beaten, rather horsey face, what she most resembled to him was a female version of Rick Blaine.

Come to think of it, the time he spent with her was also reminiscent of the time he spent with Rick—although with Hélène Bénatar, far less alcohol was involved. He enjoyed sitting and talking with her, joking with her, the two of them skewering the foibles and failings of the world with their incisive, witty comments.

He opened the door to his office just as Miss Bénatar had turned the corner from the staircase and was striding down the hall toward him. As usual, she was dressed with businesslike severity, in a beige skirt and suit-jacket and low-heeled shoes deliberately lacking in sex appeal. Only the gold pin on her jacket lapel, shaped as a flower bouquet with a cluster of pearls as its flowers, made any concession toward conventional tactics of feminine allure.

"Miss Bénatar," Louis said, bowing slightly as she drew near to him. "Any day when I see you is made brighter by your presence. Please, come in."

Although Hélène Bénatar grinned in reply to his flowery greeting, her expression immediately sobered again. As they walked into his office together, she said, "Everyone around town is talking about Rick Blaine's disappearance. How are you doing? You haven't shaved; I take it that's a bad sign."

Louis ruefully rubbed his chin. "I'm afraid you are right. It was only your arrival which reminded me I haven't yet shaved today." He shrugged and took his seat behind his desk. "I am doing better than a great many other people are doing. In these days, that is about the best that any of us can say."

Miss Bénatar gave a grimacing sort of smile and sat down opposite him. She set down her canvas messenger bag on the desk in front of her and took from it a fairly modest stack of paper; only about thirty or so sheets of it, Louis thought, this time.

She said, handing the papers to him, "I've brought you our latest appeals against the requirement to live within the Mellah."

Louis nodded. Before delving into the paperwork, he took out his cigarette case, opened it and was alarmed to realize that only two cigarettes remained inside.

This disturbing discovery was not lost on Hélène Bénatar. She deftly produced her own cigarette case, gleaming brass with her initials engraved on it and a rhinestone sparkling at each of the four corners. "Allow me," she offered.

With a smile of gratitude, he accepted a cigarette from her. She took one herself; then they indulged in a small race to see who could be faster to produce their lighter and ignite it. Since the result was more-or-less a tie, the two of them grinningly reached out and lighted each other's cigarettes.

To be honest, Louis didn't think he had ever _not_ approved any of the requests that Hélène Bénetar brought to him. All the same, he swiftly read through today's appeals, for form's sake.

It was yet another batch of respectable Jewish refugees whose cases Miss Bénetar was presenting; valued and productive citizens of this, that or the other part of Europe until the Nazis' arrival transformed them into vermin to be exterminated. And all of them had scrupulously correct and well-supported reasons for requesting that they not be compelled to live in Casablanca's old Jewish quarter.

Here was a doctor who had offered his services as a consultant at the hospital in Mers-Sultan, but who had no transportation available to him and thus had to live within easy walking distance of the hospital. His paperwork was followed by that of a teacher employed as a tutor for the children of an influential Moroccan who lived near the Sultan's palace. Next was a family whose daughter suffered from tuberculosis, for whom confinement in the over-crowded, disease-ridden Mellah would be tantamount to a death sentence. Each and every one of them had impressive reasons for requesting not to be shunted into Casablanca's ancient Jewish slum—and Louis had no intention of inquiring as to how strictly truthful all of the reasons might be. Those justifications, presented in print, should be enough to protect him from reprisals, if or when any Nazi stooges came to Casablanca to investigate the scandalous number of Jews still living outside the Mellah.

Of course, if the Germans won the war, those justifications would provide him no protection. But he figured by that time he would have committed such a plethora of sins against the Reich that this particular nose-thumbing would scarcely matter.

Each request he approved that afternoon put him into a slightly better mood. On some of the requests he added extra flourishes to his signature, just to savor the enjoyment of disobeying his Vichy overlords.

 _You can take these and shove them up your Nazi-occupied rears, my friends,_ he thought. _This is what we in Casablanca think about your pathetic, Hitler's-butt-licking directives._

Having completed all his signatures, Louis tidied up the stack of papers and handed them back to Miss Bénatar. "Here we are," he said. "All present and correct. We'll get these processed and then the i's will all be dotted and the t's will all be crossed."

He thought, as Hélène took the papers, that she seemed wearier and more preoccupied than usual, and he remembered one probable reason why she would be looking that way. He asked, "Has there been news on your request to be allowed to practice?"

She gave a thin smile. "Yes," Miss Bénatar told him, "there's been news. I've been turned down again. Too many Jewish lawyers in Morocco have already received exemptions; apparently the sky will fall on our heads, or the Nazis will occupy us, if one more Jew in the legal profession is in business in this country."

Louis scowled in sympathy. "Damn it," he muttered. "I'm sorry about that."

Hélène Bénatar shrugged as she replaced the appeals in her messenger bag. "As you said," she answered. "I am doing a great deal better than are a great many other people."

Both of them got to their feet, and a new idea occurred to Louis. Miss Bénatar would be the perfect courier to help him set into motion the next phase of his plan. But with that idea came another, chilling thought.

 _I wonder if my office is bugged?_

It was a prospect which previously he had never seriously considered. He supposed he had never before been involved in anything so incriminating that it made him fear being caught in the act.

At least half of Casablanca's population had to know the manner in which Captain Renault organized his social life: by making dates with attractive women who could benefit from his aid with their legal difficulties. Since his activities were such general knowledge, he hadn't actually given a damn if agents of Vichy, Berlin or both had thought it was a clever idea to plant listening devices in his office.

If they had, he hoped whoever had been listening in on him found his interviews in this office hot and racy enough that they feared their ear hairs would get singed.

But the deals in which he meant to engage from this point forward were of a far different order of magnitude. He had no intention of saying anything here that could reveal Rick Blaine's whereabouts. There was too much risk that said information would go straight to the ears of Consul-General Auer of the German Armistice Commission.

"I'll come downstairs with you to see these appeals turned in," Louis told Miss Bénatar, "then I'll escort you to your bike."

She cast him a quizzical look, knowing something was afoot, but she asked no questions.

Outside the Central Commissariat, Hélène Bénatar retrieved her bicycle from the streamlined metal fence to which she had locked it. She began walking the bike up the sidewalk, the prefect strolling along by her side.

After glancing around to make certain no one was walking near enough to hear them, Louis asked, "Would you have the opportunity to visit David King this afternoon?"

"At the US Consulate? Yes; in fact, that's where I was planning on going next."

"Excellent. Then you can do me a very great favor. Please be so good as to ask Mr. King to meet me at the bar of the Hotel Transatlantique a little after five o'clock today. I'll get there as soon after five as I can, but he must not leave until I've been able to talk with him. And of course, it mustn't look as though we intended to meet there; we should seem to run into each other entirely by chance."

"All right," Miss Bénatar said firmly, while giving him a keen, searching glance. "I'll tell him." She was about to get onto her bike. Then, remembering something, she stopped, took out her cigarette case, and pressed five cigarettes into Louis' hand. "You'd better take these," she told him, smiling, "to tide you over."

Louis grinned in surprise and gratitude. They weren't his brand, but Miss Bénatar had good taste in cigarettes. And besides, in a situation like this, it was almost entirely the thought that counted, anyhow.

"You are an angel of mercy," he declared, bowing his thanks.

She grinned back at him and mounted her bike. "I try my best."

Louis' next order of business when Miss Bénatar had departed was to immediately go and shave. It wasn't often he had occasion to use the shaving kit he kept in his office for such exigencies. He wasn't sure when the most recent time was that he'd spent enough uninterrupted hours at work for him to need this shaving kit.

He had nearly finished making his chin smooth again when Lieutenant Casselle apologetically stuck his head around the lavatory door. "I'm sorry to bother you, Captain. The mayor is on the 'phone for you."

Louis sighed. "Of course he is. Stall him for a couple of minutes, will you, while I get cleaned up."

After that interlude of stalling and chin-toweling, Louis returned to his office to spend a solid 45 minutes on the telephone with His Honor the Mayor. He went through every reassuring, comforting and coddling phrase he could think of, most of them several times over. His Honor clearly feared that Major Strasser's demise would trigger the end of his own tenure as mayor of Casablanca. Never mind any fear of occupation or invasion; it was potential derailment of his own career that troubled him.

Over and over Louis assured the mayor that the bothersome Mr. Blaine was almost certainly dead; that his death closed the case for them into a neat, tidy little package; that Casablanca's police force had expended nearly superhuman effort in seeking to apprehend the culprit; and that they'd bent over backward to assist the Germans, who should have nothing but praise for their efforts.

Long before the end of that telephone call, Louis wondered if His Honor had noticed that the both of them were now repeating themselves, and had each said the same things three or four times already. He abided by a strict system of rationing, permitting himself only one of Miss Bénatar's cigarettes for the duration of the call. At least the interview was not taking place in person, so Louis had the freedom to slouch far down in his desk chair, make rude faces at the receiver, and repeatedly pretend to cut the telephone's cord in two, using his fingers as the scissors.

The mayor had finally run out of steam, and Louis had just hung up the 'phone with a silent prayer of thanksgiving, when yet another tentative rap sounded at his office door.

"Yes, Vincent, what is it now?" Louis asked with weariness as Lieutenant Casselle made his appearance in the doorway.

"I'm sorry, sir; while you were on the telephone with the mayor you had another call. This one was from General Béthouart."

The surprise of that news galvanized Louis into sitting upright. Automatically he started straightening his uniform, as though General Béthouart were there in person to see him. "Yes?" he prompted. "Does the general want me to call him back?"

"No, Captain; he said you should come to his office as soon as you are available."

"Oh."

 _That_ certainly imparted a different complexion to his afternoon. It was one thing to have spent nearly an hour dispensing reassurances to a personage as thoroughly inconsequential as His Honor the Mayor. It was quite another to be ordered to report to an officer whom he actually respected—not to mention, an officer who was intelligent and well-informed enough that there was a real risk of him figuring out precisely what was going on.

Uneasily Louis wondered, _What am I going to say to him if General Béthouart point-blank asks me whether Rick is hiding out in my apartment?_

He stood up and continued making nervous attempts to render his uniform more presentable, even though he knew those efforts were pointless. He was going to walk to the general's office, and by the end of that walk he would naturally need to straighten his uniform all over again.

"Very well," he told Lieutenant Casselle. "I will walk over there; the fresh air will do me good. After I have met with the general, I think I will go and have a couple of drinks at the Hotel Transatlantique. And then, yes; let me stop you from needing to ask. After that, I promise I will go home."

Casselle nodded, with the very faint ghost of a smile. He said, "Thank you, Captain."

"I trust," added Louis, "that you will soon be going home, too?"

"Yes, sir," conceded Casselle. "I promise."

Louis made his walk to the military's HQ at his swiftest pace short of actually breaking into a jog. He cut diagonally through the Parc Lyautey, on this occasion paying no attention to the scenery he normally enjoyed. In scarcely more than five minutes he had reached the edge of the Place Administrative.

It felt odd to recall this was still the same day as the last time he'd been here at the Place; that just this morning he had stood in a courtroom of the Palais de Justice giving testimony at Major Strasser's inquest.

Another minute's walk brought him around the corner of the Place to the Military Circle. He hurried through the headquarters building's imposing main arch and ran the gauntlet of officers fulfilling secretarial functions.

On being admitted to General Béthouart's office, he found the general seated at his desk. Numerous short stacks of paper were geometrically arranged across the desk like divisions Béthouart was putting into place in the lead-up to a battle. Louis felt willing to bet that all of those stacks were reports having to do with the demise of Major Heinrich Strasser.

Béthouart cast Louis a wry look and remarked, "Go ahead and have a seat, Renault. You do know that you're not on parade-ground inspection."

"Yes, My General," Louis answered, warily settling into the chair in front of Béthouart's desk. As he did so, it occurred to him how much he hated being seated on this side of any desk. He wished, with fervor, that he could be sitting there at his ease at the desk's other side, in command of the conversation. How he wished he could direct all the next developments himself in the way he usually did, instead of dangling like a fish on a line, wondering if he would be thrown back in or if he'd be left flopping in the air to drown.

General Antoine Béthouart always looked weary; he simply had that kind of a face. In fact, Louis thought, by contrast with the weather-beaten look of General Béthouart's visage, both Richard Blaine and Hélène Bénatar looked like spring chickens whose faces had never yet been touched by the disfiguring pencil of time.

Béthouart now raised his wearied face from the latest report he'd been reading. He informed Louis, "I have spent most of my afternoon on the telephone with some who occupy the highest echelons of authority. I'm sure you'll be interested to learn that most of our conversations were about you."

"About me, sir?"

"Precisely," Béthouart told him dryly. "I have not _quite_ been speaking with Marshal Pétain or with the Sultan himself, but it hasn't fallen far short of that. I was half an hour on the 'phone with Resident-General Noguès, and spent another hour or so in my conversations with El Mokri and El Glaoui."

Louis blinked at that. He was genuinely startled to learn that Béthouart had been discussing the Casablancan situation with persons as eminent as the Resident-General, the Sultan's Grand Vizier and the Pasha of Marrakech.

He ventured, "And you were discussing me with them, sir? I would have thought the conversations more likely to focus on Major Strasser and Richard Blaine."

"Major Strasser is dead," the general answered. "And Mr. Blaine may be dead, and quite frankly, I hope he is. You, however, being alive, are the one member of this cast of characters most likely to still cause us trouble."

"Sir?" Louis questioned, irritated to notice how helpless he was sounding.

"I have assured all these illustrious personages that the situation here is under control. All of our forces have cooperated with the Germans to the fullest extent; we have left no stone unturned in the search for Strasser's killer; the Third Reich will have no cause to descend upon us like a ton of bricks on account of this latest debacle."

Béthouart cast a chilly gaze over Louis, clearly waiting for the prefect of police to say something. Obedient to that expression, Louis said, "I hear a 'however' at the end of your statement, General."

"Yes," Béthouart said, leaning back in his chair. "Yes, you certainly do. I should be able to pacify our own superiors, for now. But certain Germans are not convinced that this package is as neatly tied up as we would have them believe. They persist in thinking there is more to the situation than meets the eye. And some of those Germans are of the opinion that you are implicated in this affair; that you may be as much at the root of our troubles as is—or was—Mr. Richard Blaine."

"General—" Louis began.

Béthouart made an impatient gesture and smiled with utter lack of humor. "I know, I know," he said. "You are innocent of all wrongdoing. You don't need to bother telling me." The general sat forward again and moved aside one stack of papers so he could lean on his desk with disarranging the stack.

"But now," he said, "I have something to tell you, Renault. Be careful. The ice on which you're skating is getting thinner by the moment. Certain Germans have their eyes on you, and they will seize the slightest opportunity they can find in order to bring you down."

Louis swallowed. "Yes, sir," he said. In this instance, he thought, the phrase "a bitter pill to swallow" was almost literally accurate.

"In case you haven't understood me yet," Béthouart forcefully went on, "I am saying that you should be more careful now than you have ever been in your life. Those who have it in for you will exploit the tiniest pretext to have you removed from office. And," he continued, leaning back in his desk chair again and giving a sarcastic smile, "it has got to be said that some of the pretexts you've paraded before everyone, up to this point, have been far from tiny."

"Sir?" Louis asked again, with no need to pretend he was confused. He felt, annoyingly, several steps behind in figuring out just where the general was going with this.

"A hint of wrongdoing will have you out on your rear in less time than it takes to say _Heil Hitler_. A hint of wrongdoing such as, for instance, the allegation that you provide female refugees with work permits, residency permits and various other perks, in exchange for sex."

For once, Louis found he had absolutely nothing to say. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the general still had plenty that he planned on saying.

"I'm sure you recall all the trouble your police force and various other entities went through a few months ago in seeking to pressure Berlin into dismissing Theodor Auer from his post. I'm sure you also recall the way in which that campaign ended."

"Indeed, sir," Louis said with bitterness. "After all our work luring Auer into the honey-trap, getting photographs of him _in flagrante_ with the rent boy we'd hired for the purpose _and_ acquiring photos of him with his Jewish playboy lover in Tangier; after all that, for Berlin to refuse to fire him! Now, that shows just how deeply the high and mighty of the Third Reich really care for their supposed ideology, if they turn a blind eye to one their creatures getting up to everything they say they're most opposed to!"

"Yes," was Béthouart's dry response. "Exactly. The point being that Berlin values Theodor Auer's services highly enough that they don't give a damn what kind of prohibited debauchery he gets up to. Unfortunately, Renault, Vichy does not place the same high value on you. And our German associates wouldn't need to go through nearly as complex an intrigue to catch you as we went through with Auer. All it takes is for them to produce one woman who will testify that you gave her a permit or found employment for her in return for her sexual favors, and you'll be lucky if being dismissed from your post is the worst thing that happens to you. If Berlin demands it, Vichy will happily throw you into the arena to be devoured by the German lions, simply to avoid rubbing the lions' fur the wrong way."

Louis thought Béthouart had come up with rather a mixed metaphor, but he still got the point. And whether he had gotten the point or not, General Béthouart had clearly decided it was time for their discussion to end. The general got to his feet and Louis did the same.

"That's all I wanted to say to you," Béthouart said, with one of his wry smiles. He held out his hand to Louis and added, "I'll let you go; I'm guessing you've had an even longer day than I have."

"Thank you, sir," said Louis, shaking hands with the general. "And thank you for your advice."

"You're very welcome. I hope you'll take it."

The sun was setting when Louis reached the outside, causing the HQ building to loom in sinister silhouette against the reddened sky. Louis sighed angrily, shook his head, and set out on a beeline toward the Hotel Transatlantique.

If he hadn't already been planning a visit to the Transatlantique's bar, he would certainly have decided to go there now. Now he _really_ needed that drink or two, after his interview with General Béthouart.

 _Damn it all!_ Louis thought. _Damn all those Nazis to the hottest circle of hell!_

It was damn well going to cramp his style if he followed Béthouart's advice. He hated to think of giving up the delightfully streamlined system of dating that had served him so well for this past almost year and a half, ever since the first of the refugee ships showed up in Casablanca Harbor.

 _You know,_ he told himself, _you did get plenty of dates in the past, before you worked out this charming scheme. You never used to dangle work permits or visa assistance in front of women, and you still enjoyed no shortage of feminine company. If you have to, you can live in that way again._

 _Yes,_ he replied to himself, _but everything has been working so smoothly! It has been such an exceedingly pleasant year and a half!_

He held this mental conversation as he strode up the Rue Lasalle, took his life in his hands amidst the traffic on the Boulevard de Marseilles, and reached the beckoning haven that was the Hotel Transatlantique.

As he approached the arched and tiled front doorway, a weird feeling came over him. He suddenly realized that he had barely been to the Transatlantique once, in all the months since the grand opening of Rick's Café Américain.

It struck Louis he was feeling the same sort of embarrassment another man might feel on running into a woman to whom he'd once pledged his love—but for whom his passion had now died into cold and lifeless coals.

For his part, Louis never felt this kind of embarrassment about women. He never felt it, for the simple reason that he never promised women anything he couldn't achieve in the immediate future. He never offered them a thing beyond a pleasurable encounter, and whatever permit or other bureaucratic assistance they happened to require. Silly blunders such as pledges of eternal love and faithfulness were never part of the bargain.

But, he realized, he _did_ rather make that sort of promise to the bars he frequented, and to their bartenders—although, naturally, he made the promise with actions, not with words. He felt ludicrously awkward now over the fact that he had unceremoniously ditched the Transatlantique just as soon as Rick's Café opened. He almost felt like he should buy gifts of flowers and chocolates for the Transatlantique's bartenders, in a pathetic attempt to apologize for having walked out on them.

 _For heaven's sake, Louis,_ he chided himself, _just how ridiculous are you?_

 _Tell that idea to Bob and his fellow bartenders, and they'll get a nice big laugh at your expense._

 _Are you always this absurd when you have gone 33-plus hours without sleep?_

Through the Transatlantique's elegant lobby he strode, nodding in reply to the greetings of doorman, bellboys and concierge. He made his way to the left, through the spacious, high-ceilinged rooms where the lobby transformed itself into the restaurant, and then at last to the hotel's fabled bar.

This early in the evening, the band was not yet playing, though a few of its members were already there, preparing for their night's work. The Transatlantique's band was known for its renditions of hot jazz, although Louis' musical awareness was so minimal that he would never be able to tell if a particular piece of jazz was hot or not. All he was knew was that this band had been _the_ thing in Casablanca, up until the time when Rick's opened up. From that time on, Sam Wilson's piano-playing had more than given them a run for their money.

Early though it was, the Transatlantique bar was already thickly populated. It took Louis just a quick glance around to understand why that was.

More than half of the people he saw here were regular habituees of Rick's Café Americain. With Rick's closed down by order of the prefect of police—the prefect mentally grimaced at that, reflecting that he was unlikely to be very popular in this place, just now—Rick's customers had drifted _en masse_ to the more-or-less welcoming embrace of the next best thing.

Louis made his way to the bar and received a sour-faced nod of greeting from Bob the bartender. On seeing that look, he wondered if it might, after all, have been a good idea to bring Bob some flowers and chocolates.

The bartender known as Bob was a Greek Cypriot, possessed of a first name judged to be unpronounceable by most of the speakers of western European languages. The Britishers and Americans who'd frequented some bar he'd worked at in Paris had accordingly christened him "Bob," and Bob the bartender he had remained.

"I suppose we should thank you for shutting down Rick's, Captain," Bob dourly remarked. "We haven't seen this many customers this early in the night for the past year."

Louis nodded. "It's an ill wind," he said.

"What can I get you? It's been so long since you've favored us with a visit, I can't be expected to remember your favorite drink."

"Guilty as charged," Louis answered, wishing once again for those flowers and chocolates. "I'll have a champagne cocktail. And don't worry; I do plan on paying for it. It'd be a bit much for me to stay away for a year and then expect you to hand me a free drink."

"I'll pay for the captain's drink, Bob," called a voice from farther along the bar. "He looks like he's had a rough day; I'll bet he could use a free drink or two."

Louis glanced over and saw that the owner of the voice was—unsurprisingly—Dave King of the US Consulate. With his tall, slim form, white suit and pencil moustache, King as always looked to Louis like either an American movie actor or a gigolo. Or, perhaps the most likely possibility, like an American movie actor playing the role of a gigolo.

"Thank you," Louis said to him. "I certainly have had more relaxing days."

King left his previous place and came over to sit on the barstool next to Louis'. "I'm glad I ran into you, Captain," King said. "I guess I should have expected it; where else in Casablanca would the devotees of Rick's go, with Rick's shut down?"

"Indeed," sighed Louis. "At this rate, people will start suspecting that I was bribed to close down Rick's, for the benefit of the Transatlantique."

Louis' champagne cocktail arrived. He took an appreciative sip while King nursed his glass of whisky. Just as Louis was contemplating how best to move their conversation forward, Dave King said, "You know, I was thinking of stopping by your office. I almost went there today, but I decided I ought to wait 'till Monday. Give a little more time for things to calm down; for the shit not to be hitting the fan quite so actively. And, hopefully, time for you to have more information you can share with me."

"Mm-hm?" prompted Louis, taking another sip of his cocktail. "And you're seeking information on …?"

"On Rick Blaine's case. He's a United States national, after all. There'll be a number of reports we'll have to file. If he's still alive, and he's captured and put on trial, we'll have to be involved in ensuring that he gets all the proper legal safeguards. And if he's dead, we'll have to try and track down his next of kin to inform them."

"Yes," said Louis. "Of course. Well, Mr. King," he went on, "I hope we will indeed have more information by Monday—and that there will be significantly less shit in the fan by then. But I do have some preliminary information I'd be able to share with you." He swigged down most of his remaining cocktail, and offered, "Would you like to come over to my apartment now? I can get you up-to-date on what we know so far … and I suspect that it's a topic we really shouldn't go into much, in public."

"Thanks," said King, downing the dregs of his whisky, "I'll take you up on your offer. It's good of you to be willing to do that."

"Glad to be of help," replied Louis. "Did you happen to come here by car? I walked here, myself, but I wouldn't mind a lift to my apartment. All of it does seem to be suddenly catching up with me—which I suppose should not be surprising, since the last time I slept was on Wednesday night."

"Sure, Captain. I'll be happy to give you a lift."

"Farewell, then, Bob," said Louis, as Dave King set down on the bar the payment for his own drink and the captain's. "I am sorry to have to leave you again so soon. Perhaps I will be back again later, if I find myself unable to sleep."

Looking severely unimpressed, Bob the bartender said tersely, "Don't be a stranger, Captain Renault."

The fairly battered Buick that Dave King drove was parked just a few steps down the street. Setting out on the brief drive to Les Studios, King commented to Louis, "I think the only other time I've been to your apartment was for that party you threw back in February, when Josephine Baker came to town. Remember?"

Louis smiled. "I am in no danger of ever forgetting," he said. "That night was one of the crowning achievements of my life. As a star-struck theater-goer in Paris fifteen years or so ago, I could scarcely have dreamed that someday Miss Baker would attend a party in my apartment." He grinned as he continued thinking back, remembering how enchanting Miss Baker had looked as she clambered laughingly onto a chair and balanced there on her tiptoes so she could sign the old theater poster for one of her revues that Louis had up on his wall. She had looked like one of her advertising posters come to life.

"She's back in Casablanca again," King went on. "Had you heard?"

"No!" Louis exclaimed, taken by surprise. "When did she arrive?"

"Just a few days ago. But she's here because she was taken ill. She and Mr. Abtey her choreographer were in Marrakech when she got sick; he brought her here to get her into a hospital."

"My God," said Louis, now genuinely shocked. "I am sorry to hear all that. Which hospital is she in? Do you know what's wrong with her?"

"Some stomach problem, I think. It might be peritonitis. She's in the clinic at Mers-Sultan, just down the way."

"My God," Louis said again. "I'll have to visit her soon. I can't believe I hadn't heard about any of this."

"Well," David King pointed out, "I guess you've had a lot you had to deal with lately, what with Major Strasser being in town."

King parked the Buick on the Rue Blaise Pascal side of the building. Neither he nor Louis said much as they headed up to Louis' apartment, except to bid a good evening to Ayoub the doorman. For his part, Louis was still brooding over the alarming news about Miss Baker.

 _At least,_ he thought grimly, _worrying about her may distract me from worrying about Rick, when he and Mr. King have run off together to play secret agent._

All the lights were off in his apartment. He kept them off until David King had followed him inside and Louis had shut and locked the door behind them. When he switched on the overhead light, it revealed Rick Blaine standing beside the sofa: his trench coat on, his hat sitting on one of the arms of the sofa, and his Colt in his hand. Rick wasn't quite pointing the pistol at them, but doubtless he would have done so in an instant if they had turned out to be the wrong people walking through the door.

Dave King muttered some startled imprecation in English. Then he said to Louis, "I guess you weren't kidding. You did have some information to share with me."

"Welcome home," said Rick, with his usual deadpan calm. He put the Colt back into his overcoat pocket. "How was work?"

"A trifle stressful," Louis admitted. "How was your day?"

"Boring. I've been lying here on the couch all day, wondering if the next person to step through that door would be you, or someone I would have to shoot."

Dave King said to his compatriot, "I take it you really are the one who killed Major Strasser?"

"Guilty as charged," Rick said, with the hint of a smile.

"In order to help Victor Laszlo get out of Casablanca?"

Rick shrugged. "Looked to me like somebody needed to do it."

King gave a little snort. "So much for sticking your neck out for nobody."

"Guess I got absent minded and forgot about that. Besides, Louis and I had a bet on the question. I had 10,000 francs riding on Laszlo getting out of town."

The vice-consul looked from Rick, to Louis, and back again. "And by bringing me into this now, the two of you are hoping that I will ...?"

Rick answered, "Louis' got the idea you've been working on setting up Resistance cells. He thinks you can smuggle me out of town and get me in touch with folks who'll help me earn my stripes as a full-fledged member of the Resistance."

Dave King nodded thoughtfully. "Something like that might be possible," he said.

"There is more to my idea," Louis added. "I also thought it likely that you can pass along to the appropriate people my own desire to assist the Resistance, and to transmit information which comes to me that may be of use to their cause."

King looked impressed. "You could be a lot of help," he said quietly. "So you've taken up the habit of sticking out your neck for people, too?"

Louis shrugged. "I think it's likely that my neck will end up on the chopping-block whether I stick it out for anyone or not. I would rather get the chop for some more-or-less heroic acts, than for doing nothing at all."

"I see." Dave King took some moments of pondering, then he said, "Well, yes. I think both of your hypotheses are likely to prove true." He turned to face Rick. "You'd better not leave here with me. Our Nazi friends are pretty certain to have a tail on me. I'll leave and hopefully draw him away; then about twenty minutes after I've left, you leave yourself and go to the Fortin Moullot stationary store, Number 12 Boulevard de la Liberté. You know it?"

"Sure, I know it," replied Rick.

"Go around to the back door and knock on it in the rhythm of the first bar of _La Marseillaise._ "

Rick gave a small smile at that, and Louis raised his eyebrows. Dave King answered with a sheepish grin, "People enjoy that kind of cloak-and-dagger stuff. It makes us feel a little like we're in a movie, and not really risking our lives."

"Okay," said Rick. "Anything else I need to know?"

"No, not for now. They'll keep you out of sight. Meanwhile I'll start the ball rolling on getting you out of town."

"You shouldn't leave here yet," Louis pointed out to King. "Your tail may think something's funny if our conversation is this short. Let us drink a toast to Rick's and my new careers. I have some bottles of Veuve Cliquot '26 that Rick graciously permitted me to purchase from his cellar at a significant discount. It seems a fitting choice for this occasion. Especially since," he added, his tone turning melancholy, "that particular wellspring may go dry for me with Rick's departure."

"That's true," Rick grinned. "I only got Ferrari to commit to still letting you win at roulette and to tearing up your bar bills—not to your accessing the wine cellar at less than wholesale prices."

Louis went to fetch the bottle and glasses. Full glasses in hand, they hesitated a moment in contemplating the proper toast. Then Rick decided on one. He said, "Here's to sticking our necks out."

"To sticking our necks out," repeated Dave King and Louis Renault.

While savoring the wine, the two Americans speculated on what Rick's Café might be like under Umberto Ferrari's ownership. For his part, Louis glanced from time to time at his autographed poster of Josephine Baker. He wondered if concern for his favorite singer, ill in hospital just a few blocks down the street, could really distract him from worrying himself silly over Rick, from the moment Mr. Blaine left his apartment.

Dave King set down his empty glass and said, "I guess I've been here long enough. My tail shouldn't think I'm acting weird by leaving now." He continued, with a smile, "Thanks for being willing to talk with me, Captain. It's been extremely informative. Rick, I'll see you later."

"See you," Rick said. Louis smiled and bowed to King in reply.

Then Rick and Louis were alone, with twenty minutes to go before Rick was scheduled to depart.

"Have some more wine," Louis said.

"I might as well," Rick remarked, "since it's my own wine."

"I _did_ pay you for it," Louis countered. "I just paid you a very small amount."

While Rick was refilling their glasses and taking a seat on the couch, Louis went to the bureau where he stored his cartons of cigarettes and restocked his cigarette case. As he did so, an odd detail occurred to him.

Rick hadn't been smoking since Louis and Dave King arrived. And now that he thought of it, he realized there was no recent aura of cigarette smoke about the apartment.

He took a quick inventory of all the ash trays scattered around the living room. All were pristinely empty. He glanced into the room's two wastepaper baskets, then went into the kitchen to check the bin there.

"You looking for something?" Rick asked, when Louis returned from the kitchen.

"Yes." He sat down on the couch, next to Rick, and studied his friend's face. Rick's weathered countenance seemed currently sphinxlike in its unreadability. Louis continued, "Where have you put your cigarette butts? Did you do all your smoking upstairs?"

"No," Rick told him. "I haven't been smoking here."

Louis stared in disbelief. "What?" he exclaimed. "Why ever not? You surely didn't believe the scent would offend my nostrils."

Rick said seriously, "Think about it, Louis. You and I smoke different brands. And the Gestapo's file on me is sure to have a note in it about what brand I smoke. If they search your place before the trash gets emptied, I don't want you being incriminated by my cigarette butts."

"My God," Louis murmured, still staring. "I think that is … the most thoughtful thing anybody's ever done for me." He swiftly recovered himself and shook his head. "It's thoughtful, but it's also stupid. Why in heaven's name didn't you help yourself to some of _my_ cigarettes, you ridiculous man?"

Rick Blaine gave a rueful, lopsided grin. "I didn't like to go snooping around the place looking for them. It's okay," he went on. "A day without cigarettes isn't going to kill me."

"Well," Louis said forcefully, "you'd better have one of mine now, anyway."

Both of them were soon puffing away on Louis' non-incriminating cigarettes. Having solved the problem of Rick's shocking lack of nicotine, Louis next said, "What you said to Dave King reminded me: if you and I aren't running off to Brazzaville together, then I still owe you that 10,000 Francs."

"Oh, yeah," said Rick, not sounding all that interested in the fact. "I guess we can just put that on your bill, if you want."

"Nothing doing. I may be a poor corrupt official, but I still pay my debts. Well, some of them," he amended. "Not counting bar bills. Anyhow, as a member of the Resistance on the run, you are likely to have some unexpected expenses. I'll be right back."

Upstairs, his bedroom was primarily decorated with his collection of Josephine Baker posters—although only the one downstairs was autographed. Despite all of his star-struck dreams, Miss Baker had never set foot inside his bedroom. But in addition to the posters, on either side of the door hung two framed covers from _Parisian Life_ magazine. To the right was his favorite, the cover from February 9, 1918. Its painting showed a slim, perkily-breasted young woman who had draped herself in an American flag to honor the US troops arriving in France. At least, she had draped most of herself. One of her breasts was exposed, its nipple pointing enthusiastically skyward.

Of course, Louis had never actually seen anybody dressed—or undressed—quite like that, in France in 1918. But still, the painting brought back for him some truly happy memories.

He took down the picture and set it on a bureau, revealing the wall-safe behind it. After counting out the requisite 10,000 Francs and closing the safe again, he returned the enthusiastic young lady to her place on the wall. Before leaving the room, he blew the painted girl a kiss. Or, rather, he blew the kiss to the painting's outstanding and upstanding breast.

"Here you are," he announced, when he returned to the couch and handed Rick the stack of banknotes. "Don't spend it all in one place."

"Thanks, Louis," Rick said, pocketing the money. "I guess this will come in handy, since I had to sacrifice my luggage for the sake of our cover story. Now I can buy myself a set of gold-plated suitcases."

Louis nodded. "An accessorizing necessity for today's fashionable Resistance member."

The remainder of their twenty minutes consisted of Louis regaling Rick with highlights from the search for Richard Blaine. After depositing the butt of his second cigarette in the nearest ashtray, Rick glanced at his watch and commented, "Looks like it's about time I was heading out."

An icy jolt made its way with startling suddenness through Louis' guts. Rick, however, made no immediate move to stand up.

"Listen, Louis," Rick said. "One of the things I've been thinking while I was lying here all day … I think you need to tell Sam the truth about what I'm up to. It wouldn't be fair to him, for me not tell him the truth. But if I tried to get to him now, there's no way I wouldn't get caught. And … I don't think it'd be fair to you, either. If Sam really does believe I've taken a one-way trip out to sea, then he won't be able to forgive himself for not stopping me. And since taking things out on other people doesn't hurt quite as much as taking them out on oneself … he's going to want to hurt somebody. And that somebody's going to be you. He'll blame you for not stopping me, just like he blames himself. If you don't get the truth out fast enough, there's a good chance he'll kill you."

Louis thought about that for a moment and decided he did not doubt it in the slightest. On the theory that still waters run deep, he could easily believe there were very great depths in Sam Wilson.

"Maybe you've never seen Sam's dangerous side," Rick went on, "but believe me, he's got one. And in this context, you really don't want to see it."

 _You've got that right,_ Louis thought. "All right," he said. "I'll tell Sam the truth. Is there any secret password I can say first, to stop him from killing me before I get a word in edgeways?"

"Yeah," Rick said. "Give me a minute; I'll think of something." After significantly less than a minute, he nodded and said, "Okay. This ought to work. You can tell Sam I told you to say, 'Henri wants us to finish this bottle and then three more. He says he'll water his garden with champagne before he lets the Germans drink it.'"

Dutifully, Louis repeated, "'Henri wants us to finish this bottle and then three more. He says he'll water his garden with champagne before he lets the Germans drink it.'" He shook his head slightly and remarked, "I feel as though I'm attempting to join the Freemasons. Have you got a secret handshake, as well? Will I need to wear a silly apron?"

Rick grinned. "No," he said. "That line about Henri and the champagne ought to do it." He cast a look at his watch again. "I guess I need to head out to the stationary store."

"Yes," Louis said. "I suppose so." His voice sounded taut and wary to his ears as he fought against letting any emotion seep into it.

Rick got to his feet. Louis followed suit.

An awkward half-smile appeared on Rick's face. "That fish stew was great," he said. "You were right; you will make somebody a fine little wife someday."

"Thanks," said Louis, still fighting to keep all emotions from his voice. "I try my best."

Rick suddenly frowned. "The hell with this," he muttered. "Come here, you corrupt bastard." And Rick Blaine pulled Louis Renault into a strong, fierce hug.

Louis thought there was desperation in the way they clutched at each other's backs—but perhaps the desperation was only on his own part. He had the disconcerting sensation that he had actually shivered when he heard Rick's voice so very close to his ear, as the American whispered, "Thanks for everything, Louis."

Then, somehow, both of them let go of each other and stepped back. Louis answered, "It was my pleasure." He wondered if his smile looked as thoroughly false as it felt.

To put off for a tiny bit longer the moment when Rick would leave, Louis commented, "Speaking of corruption: I may soon be giving up some of my corrupt ways, if I follow General Béthouart's orders. He called me into his office this afternoon and basically commanded me to stop handing out permits in exchange for sex."

"Yeah?" Rick asked him, sounding skeptical. "You think you could give that up? What would you find to do with all your spare time?"

Louis shrugged. "I might just end up playing a lot more roulette."

Rick didn't glance at his watch again, but he made a third remark about needing to get out. "Guess I need to go out and buy some stationary."

"Yes," Louis said. "Use the kitchen door and the service stairway again. That way Ayoub can truthfully deny having seen you."

"Okay," said Rick. He picked up his hat from the arm of the couch. "I'll be seeing you, then, Louis."

"Try not to get yourself killed immediately, Ricky. I would hate to think I went through this whole trying day for nothing."

Rick told him, "I'll do my best."

Abruptly the American turned and strode into the kitchen, vanishing from Louis' sight. By sheer force of will, Louis kept himself rooted to the spot. He heard the faint tread of Rick's steps on the kitchen floor, followed by the scarcely audible sound of Rick closing the door behind him.

Louis immediately walked in the other direction, crossing his living room toward the loggia. He pulled open the loggia doors and went outside.

The light from the living room allowed him to make his way between the items of patio furniture and the potted palms, to the loggia's very edge. He stood there leaning against the concrete wall, his hands gripping the cold smoothness of the metal rail at its top.

His ears strained frantically for a sound that would tell him Rick had been intercepted as he left the building. In grim fear, Louis listened for the sound of a gunshot.

No such sound came. He heard only the usual sounds of evening traffic in Casablanca.

Louis finally headed back inside. He left the loggia door standing open, even though he knew there was no logical reason for doing so.

He decided to open another bottle of Veuve Cliquot. A certain light-headedness as he began sipping the wine reminded him that he'd eaten barely anything all day, and he really ought to get himself some dinner.

Rick had left the kitchen just as spotless as the ash trays. He had washed and put away any kitchen wares that he'd used. At this further proof of the American's thoughtfulness, Louis noticed he felt ridiculously close to tears.

 _It's just the wine,_ he told himself. He looked into the refrigerator and found the stewpot inside, holding one final helping's-worth of fish stew.

Rick had saved the last helping for him. Louis sighed at the absurdity of the lump he felt in his throat, and moved the stewpot out onto the stove.

He stood there drinking Veuve Cliquot '26 in the kitchen while the stew heated up. Then he carried his glass and his bowl out to the table in front of the sofa.

Before settling down to eat, he decided he would put on a record to keep him company. There was no question at all about which record he would choose. His favorite of Josephine Baker's songs was what he always put on when he felt that he had demons who needed holding at bay.

Normally, he would sit there on the couch, with his eyes closed, drinking in her beautiful voice as she lilted her way through "Under African Skies." The warm, golden sounds would make him feel warm, as well. He would imagine that Miss Baker was sitting on the couch right next to him and was singing his favorite song solely for him.

"Under the sky of Africa," Miss Baker sang, "every moment seems better than elsewhere. For us, everything is desire, pleasure, in this sorcerer country."

Usually, when he played that record, Louis listened to the song over and over again. But this time, when the song ran out, he didn't bother going back to the phonograph.

This time, the magic had not worked. This time he could not stop himself from remembering the fact that the woman whose voice he'd just heard was at this very moment lying ill, just down the street from him in the hospital of Mers-Sultan.

And this time, it wasn't Josephine Baker he imagined sitting on the sofa beside him. This time, he imagined Rick—although Rick most definitely was not singing "Under African Skies."

He knew it was stupid for him to keep on listening for sounds from outside. Rick would be far out of his earshot by now. If anything did happen to Rick—on the way to the Fortin Moullot stationary store, or anywhere else—Louis would hear nothing that could tell him Rick's fate.

All the same, he kept the loggia doors standing open, with the chill air of night creeping in on him. Until deep into the night, Louis Renault sat there, listening to nothing.


	4. Chapter 4: Saturday, December 6, 1941

The Unusual Suspect

A _Casablanca_ Fanfiction

Chapter Four:

Saturday, December 6, 1941: Day

The dreams he remembered when he awoke made Louis think that sleeping had been a bad idea.

Not that going without sleep for the second night in a row would have been any kind of a brilliant move. But he would have been exceedingly glad to have avoided those dreams.

It wasn't even that they'd been nightmares; not the breed of nightmare that makes a person wake up sweating with horror. They were simply the sort of dream that gets under one's skin. He knew they would lurk mockingly in his mind for the rest of the day, ready to pop up without warning and turn everything sour and strange.

The first part he remembered involved Major Strasser and Louis' father.

The major and Yves Renault were out for a walk in the Breton countryside, and Louis was unhappily trudging along behind them. Naturally, it was misty, cold and raining: the classic evocation of all the miserable childhood walks that Louis remembered in reality. Louis' father wanted to show Major Strasser the various dolmens and stone circles where he said he had witnessed the fairy folk dancing.

As they walked, Strasser and Yves Renault engaged in a learned discussion of the many types of fairies, debating which varieties, if any of them, still visited the mortal world. On this point the German major and the Breton schoolteacher were in sharp disagreement. Strasser maintained, in his incisive, mocking tones, that the only fairies who still entered the mortal sphere did so in Germany.

Louis slogged after them, his shoes squelching in mud, rain sneaking into the collar of his overcoat and creeping along his skin. He remembered thinking that at any rate, no fairy with any sense would pick a day like this to visit the mortal world. He followed his father and the major along an avenue between two dark, sinister rows of standing stones. With the mist as thick as it was, he couldn't see the stones to either side of him until he was nearly abreast of them.

Several times he looked back over his shoulder. Through the mist, he thought he saw the stones he had walked between turn into two rows of German soldiers, standing silently at attention.

Perhaps Strasser prevailed on Yves Renault to come to Germany with him to see the fairies. Suddenly the two of them and Louis were sitting at a table in some nightclub, which he guessed was probably in Berlin. From everywhere came the sound of people loudly and cheerfully speaking German. The place was filled with waitresses wearing nothing but high-heeled shoes, rhinestone stars stuck to their nipples, and tiny skirts made from fluffy pink feathers. Louis felt embarrassed that his father would see how immodestly the girls were dressed. Yves, however, paid no attention to the nearly naked women, although while he continued his discussion with Major Strasser, the major had one of the waitresses sitting on his lap.

As he lit a cigarette for the barely-clad girl who was sitting on him, Strasser claimed that the only fairies still in this world were those who lived in the Black Forest and within the waters of the Rhine. Yves Renault countered that fairies only appeared to people from their own countries, so naturally Strasser would only have seen German fairies.

Louis, meanwhile, stopped paying much attention to their conversation. The chief items of décor in this nightclub were numerous gold-painted giant birdcages suspended from the ceiling. Most of the cages held further bored-looking young women in rhinestones and feathers. But the cage nearest to Strasser and the Renaults had a very different occupant.

Sitting glumly on the little swing inside that cage, hunched over in a pose of utter dejection, was Richard Blaine. Rick had good reason to look dejected, because he was wearing even less than the girls in their feathers and rhinestones. Rick was dressed only in a skirt made of bananas.

There are people who look good in a skirt fashioned from bananas, but Rick Blaine was emphatically not one of them. He was far too scrawny to pull that look off with any kind of aplomb. Louis felt his eyes sting with tears as he realized how miserable Rick looked; how miserable and how horribly cold. He longed to take Rick out of the cage, throw away those wretched bananas, get some clothes on Rick and then hug him for as long as it would take for the American to get warm.

Louis had awakened with a jolt. He lay there and asked himself, _My God, why did I go to sleep?_

His dread of further dreams launched him out of bed at long before his usual hour. The result was that he appeared at the Central Commissariat at a little after eight o'clock, rather than his typical arrival time of 10:00. The policemen on duty looked predictably aghast on seeing their boss arrive so early in the morning.

He ensconced himself in his office. There he sat hunkered at his desk, ill-temperedly breakfasting on coffee and croissants while reading through various reports. The heftiest item demanding his attention was a document produced by Sergeant Allard and the Port Police, reporting on ocean currents and the probable washing-up locations for corpses that entered the sea at Abderrahmane Beach.

Not that he cared about that topic. But he had to look as though he did. He still needed to support the appearance that he believed Rick's body was floating around out there at the mercy of the Atlantic.

The thought of Rick's body sent his mind jumping to the image from his dream: Rick sitting there, showing all the joy in life of a plucked, elderly chicken, while wearing that appalling skirt of bananas.

 _That's it,_ he thought, _that is the last time I will listen to a Josephine Baker song while I am worrying myself sick over the fate of Richard Blaine, American._

 _For heaven's sake! I would rather see Rick naked than see him decked out in a banana skirt!_

 _Not, of course, that_ that _thought has anything odd or disturbing about it …_

It was precisely ten o'clock, Captain Renault's usual time for arriving at work, when Lieutenant Casselle came barreling into Louis' office.

"Captain!" Casselle gasped out. "The doorman at your apartment building just _'_ phoned asking for help. He says Consul-General Auer and some German troops are there, demanding to search your apartment!"

"He says what!" Louis yelled, jumping to his feet.

"That's right, sir; your doorman says he's holding them off, insisting you need to be present and give your consent, but if they decide to break in by force—"

"If they decide to break in by force," Louis snapped, already striding for the door, "there will be an international incident, and I will have every bureaucrat's undershorts in a twist about this in every office in Vichy and Berlin."

Although, he reminded himself grimly, there was an uncomfortably large chance that no bureaucrats in Vichy or Berlin would give a damn about Louis' international incident. He remembered too well General Béthouart's unflattering estimate of how little anyone in Vichy cared about Captain Louis Renault.

 _Once again,_ he told himself, _finesse is required, rather than storming in there with guns blazing. Much though I would prefer the latter alternative._

He was furious, but in one compartment of his brain he could see the funny side of this drama he was caught up in. He charged through the Central Commissariat, ordered a handful of policemen to accompany him, and the five of them piled into the nearest available police car. As they drove at death-defying speed for the short journey to Louis' apartment building, he knew the scene resembled a police chase sequence from a comedy movie of twenty years or so in the past.

Louis and his four policemen walked in on a striking tableau in the Les Studios lobby. Yousef, the young and dapper morning doorman, was standing behind the front desk, terrified but determined. He had a look about him which implied he would fight to the death rather than allow anyone to violate the private property of Les Studios' tenants.

Across the desk from Yousef stood Consul-General Theodor Auer, bland, urbane and somehow thoroughly threatening, in spite of the mild expression on his face. Ranged behind the consul-general were four German soldiers. The sight of them gave Louis an unpleasant twinge of memory, recalling the standing stones that became soldiers in the mists of his dream.

 _We are five against five,_ Louis thought. _Well, we are six against five, considering that Yousef will side with me._

 _If this were a scene in a movie, we would now all break into a general gunfight, right here in Les Studios' lobby._

Of course, neither Louis nor, presumably, Yousef was carrying a firearm. Louis decided that in his hypothetical motion picture, he would launch himself bodily at Theodor Auer, and Yousef would stop Auer from shooting Louis by hurling the telephone at Auer and knocking the pistol from his hand.

Since they were not in a movie, Louis simply asked in quiet tones, "Is there some problem here, Yousef?"

"Thank you for coming, Captain," the young doorman answered, struggling to hold his voice steady. "These gentlemen are demanding to search your apartment."

"Demanding?" Louis inquired, raising his eyebrows at Auer.

The round-faced and harmless-looking German smiled at him. "Oh, not demanding," Auer said politely. "Requesting."

"Requesting," echoed Louis. "Is there any reason you did not make your request to me, rather than to my building's doorman?"

Auer's smile became still broader. "I didn't think it would be necessary. Since we have been assured on numerous occasions that the French authorities are cooperating with our investigations to the fullest extent, I did not believe you would have any objection to the request."

"I see," Louis said. "This must be some difference between the German and French ways of thinking. Or perhaps it's a problem with translation. I should point out that as I understand it, cooperating to the fullest with your investigations does not automatically entail all our homes being searched while we are away at work."

Auer answered, still with that amiable smile, "As you say: a problem with translation. Since you are here, Captain, would you be good enough to show us your apartment now?"

"I'd still like to understand further," Louis persisted. "For what, precisely, are you searching?"

"For Richard Blaine," said Auer, looking slightly surprised that Louis had asked that question. "It's common knowledge that you are his friend, and you are the last person known to have seen him alive. Forgive me for saying it, but certain persons are not fully convinced that you are innocent of involvement in Mr. Blaine's disappearance."

Louis nodded. "I fear," he said, "that certain persons are wasting our time. However, so that our time need not be wasted over this in the future, let us deal with the issue now. Would you gentlemen care to have a look around my apartment?"

In order to avoid the lot of them cramming into the elevator like sardines, only Louis, Auer and one each of their respective followers rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. The remaining policemen and soldiers took the stairs. When all had reconvened at the door to his apartment, Louis unlocked it and opened the door wide. Bowing, he said to his opposite number, "After you, Herr Auer."

As everybody filed into the apartment, Louis was reviewing in his mind whether the place was as non-incriminating as he believed it to be.

 _It should be fine,_ he told himself. Rick's impact on the apartment had been minimal-to-non-existent. The fugitive American had washed and put away all his dishes; he'd been lying on the couch, so there had been no bed to make—or no disarranged bed to explain away—and of course there had been his insane delicacy about the cigarettes. Louis had thought Rick was absurdly over-cautious on that question. Now he felt fervently glad for Rick's consideration.

Theodor Auer sent two of his men upstairs to search the bathroom and bedrooms. Louis sent along two of his policemen to keep them company. The rest of them were left to watch the fairly ridiculous process as the remaining two soldiers searched the downstairs: looking under the sofa and all other pieces of furniture, and opening up every closet and Louis' liquor cabinet. Louis did not follow the Germans into the kitchen, but he supposed they would also be required to look inside the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator.

Seemingly just for the sake of saying something while they watched the investigative antics of his soldiers, Auer remarked to Louis, "You are fond of Josephine Baker, Captain Renault."

Louis thought this a fairly idiotic comment, considering the presence on the wall of his nearly two-meter-tall autographed poster with its elegant cartoon of Miss Baker and her pet cheetah. He answered, "You have impressive skills of observation, Herr Auer."

Auer made a lightning-swift segue into more disturbing territory. "Tell me," he said, his tone still casual and friendly-sounding, "your housekeeper is a Mrs. Emilie Solomon, isn't that true?"

"That's true," Louis said, frowning.

"Are you aware that Mrs. Solomon is a Jew?"

Louis stared in distaste at the affably smiling man beside him. "I'm aware that she is a Frenchwoman," he declared. "As far as I'm concerned, that is all that matters."

"Really, Captain? I hadn't realized you were such a patriot. Then you don't find Mrs. Solomon's Jewishness in any way disturbing to you?"

"I've never found that people's religious beliefs have any impact on their ability to clean my apartment."

"I see. I believe," Auer went on, "that you are also on friendly terms with Hélène Bénatar. In fact, she is known to have visited your office only yesterday afternoon."

"Miss Bénatar had some paperwork to submit to my office. Perhaps this hasn't occurred to you, Herr Auer: as prefect of police it's an advantage to me to be on friendly terms with more-or-less everyone. It aids in the performance of my duties for me to work well with all manner of people—even in situations when my personal convictions might mean I would rather have nothing to do with them."

Consul-General Auer raised his eyebrows in a mockingly amused look that made Louis want to punch him. "Your personal convictions, Captain? I did not think you had any. Haven't you been known to say that you have no convictions, and you blow with the prevailing wind?"

"The fact that one blows with the prevailing wind does not necessarily mean one prefers windy weather."

"No?" smiled Theodor Auer. "Well, perhaps that's another aspect of the French national character that I do not fully understand."

Auer apparently returned his attention to watching his soldiers go about their ridiculous apartment-search. He said something to them in German which was presumably a reminder that they should search the loggia, since the two soldiers who were downstairs immediately trooped outside to do just that.

Meanwhile, Louis was eyeing Herr Auer and marveling over how a man could be so utterly disgusting.

It wasn't often that Louis encountered a person who horrified him so badly it made him feel like throwing up. But he had nearly that feeling about Consul-General Auer.

Wrong-headed though he believed the Nazis to be, he could still feel some respect for an honest Nazi. A person who actually believed in all that claptrap they spouted, and whose actions supported his beliefs—at least such a person had some kind of honor, no matter how loathsome his worldview appeared to Captain Louis Renault.

But there was no honor nor honesty in Consul-General Theodor Auer.

He was the darling of Berlin. His work was so valued by his bosses that they would never dream of firing him. And all the time, while laboring to further Nazi world domination, he spent his leisure hours in personal orgies with a homosexual Jewish playboy.

 _Last I heard,_ Louis thought, _homosexuality was not much more approved by Nazi doctrine than Judaism._

 _So how do you live with yourself, Herr Auer? How do you get up from your boyfriend's bed and go directly to work destroying other men like him?_

Seemingly a propos of nothing, Auer turned toward Louis and asked, "You served in the French army during the last war, isn't that right?"

Louis frowned at his questioner. "That's right. I can bring out my medals to show you if you're really eager to see them."

Ignoring that comment, Auer went blandly on, "As did your younger brother, Etienne. And your brother was killed in the war."

"Yes," Louis said brusquely. "At Verdun. Do you believe that my military record or that of my brother have any relevance to the question of whether a suspected enemy of the Reich is hiding out in my apartment?"

"Oh, no," said Herr Auer, with his abominable smile, "not at all. I was merely making conversation. I'm terribly sorry if I've offended you."

"I'm not offended," Louis told him, lying through his teeth. "Merely puzzled."

One of Auer's soldiers hurried down the stairs. His shadow from the Casablanca Municipal Police kept an eye on him from the balcony. The soldier strode to Auer and made some brief report in German.

"Really?" said Auer in French. He turned toward Louis, still with that insanely aggravating smile. "I am informed, Captain, that you have a wall-safe upstairs."

"Yes," Louis said, scarcely believing they were talking about this. "I have a wall-safe upstairs." Since the safe could only be found by removing one of his _Parisian Life_ pictures from the wall, he wondered whether the soldier had enjoyed contemplating the girl with her bared breast and her American flag.

As he stared at Auer this time, a tiny portion of Louis' simmering anger started to boil over. "I have a wall-safe," he continued with asperity, "and said wall-safe is approximately 30 centimeters square. Mr. Blaine may not be the tallest of men"—never mind that Rick was a few centimeters taller than was Louis himself—"but there is still a great deal too much of him for him to squeeze himself into a 30-centimeter space!"

Auer's expression sharpened as though he had caught Louis making some revealing blunder. "You said he _isn't_ the tallest of men," the German pointed out. "Does that mean you think—or you know—that Mr. Blaine is still alive?"

Louis rolled his eyes in frustration. "A figure of speech, my dear Consul-General," he snapped back. "I'm sure you must have had the experience of not quite managing to adjust your verb tenses properly, when someone you know has just died. Now, then," Louis barged onward, "are you going to insist I open my safe to prove Mr. Blaine is not crammed inside?"

He felt pretty certain there was not anything actually incriminating inside his safe. There was just money and various documents—his identity and army papers, and papers relating to his employment history; nothing that could prove to Herr Auer or anyone else that Louis Renault was a spy. All the same, if he could prevent the Germans from rummaging around in the safe, he would prevent them, just for the principle of the thing.

Theodor Auer was once again smiling. "No, my dear Captain," he said at last, "that shouldn't be necessary. As you say, it's hardly likely that Mr. Blaine would be inside. Very well," Auer went on, "I believe we've seen all we need to see here." The consul-general said something in German to the soldier who had reported the wall-safe, presumably ordering him to fetch his comrade from upstairs.

Less than five minutes later, Auer and his troop had departed. Louis had sent his patrolmen outside to ensure that the Germans actually got into their car and drove away, although naturally, there was nothing to keep them from stopping and retracing their route the moment they turned a corner. For his part, Louis remained in the lobby a few moments longer, standing side-by-side with the heroic young doorman. Yousef had come out from behind the desk to get a better view through the front door as the Germans drove off.

Letting out his breath in a sort of relieved whistle, Yousef remarked, "There go some gentlemen I am glad to see the backs of."

"I owe you my deepest thanks," Louis said sincerely, turning toward him. "Today you have truly acted above and beyond the call of duty."

Yousef answered with a bashful little smile. "No, sir," he countered quietly. "That _was_ my duty. But I'm very grateful you turned up when you did. And I'm glad they didn't actually try forcing the door."

"Yes," said Louis, smiling back at him. "That would have been awkward. Well," he continued, reaching up to pat the young man's shoulder, "even though you say it was your duty, have a think over whether there's anything I can do to be helpful to you or your family. If you think of something, please let me know."

Back at the Commissariat, Louis spent the rest of the morning reading more reports, as well as listening to Sergeant Allard's in-person updates on the coastal areas he had thus far supervised searching with the Port Police. Unsurprisingly for Louis, those searches had turned up no trace of Richard Blaine's corpse.

He decided it made sense for him to not be in quite such an emotionally fraught state today as he'd supposedly been in yesterday. As a result, he would be acting in-character if he ate more-or-less regular meals. He permitted Lieutenant Casselle to send out for sandwiches for him from Marcel's: one of them with ham and the other, his favorite variety, with camembert and cucumber. Since it was his favorite, he saved that one for last. He still had about a third of the sandwich left, when his lunch and his skimming of yet another report were both interrupted by the squalling ring of the telephone on his desk.

"Captain …" came Casselle's voice on the line, sounding more than usually distressed.

Louis quickly swallowed his current bite of sandwich. He asked, "What's the matter now, Vincent?"

"Captain, Sam Wilson is on his way upstairs to your office. He barged past all of us instead of waiting to learn if you'll see him. We can still stop him if you want us to—"

"No, that's all right," Louis said heavily. "I'll see him."

He stood up from his desk, wrapped up what was left of his sandwich, and strode toward his office door. He got the door open presumably just before Mr. Wilson would have thrown it open without waiting to be invited in. The piano-player loomed right outside the door. Louis had to force himself not to swallow nervously at the sight of him.

Last night, Rick had said to him, _Maybe you've never seen Sam's dangerous side. But believe me, he's got one. And in these circumstances, you really don't want to see it._

Louis had whole-heartedly agreed with that statement. He still agreed now. Unfortunately, it didn't look as though he had any choice in the matter.

It seemed odd to see Sam dressed as he was, in regular day clothes including a hat instead of his usual uniform of evening clothes. But a far more unfamiliar aspect of the American's appearance was the daunting scowl he was aiming at Louis. Looking up into the bigger man's face, Louis thought that today Sam Wilson the piano player seemed like a storm god who could annihilate Louis Renault with a bolt of lightning.

"Mr. Wilson," Louis said, thinking that at least his voice sounded _almost_ as suave and calm as it usually did. "Won't you come in?"

"Thanks, Captain," Sam grated. "I will."

They both stepped further into the office and Louis quietly shut the door behind them. As he did so, he noticed at least eight of his fellow policemen standing uncertainly a short ways down the hallway. He nodded to them, not quite sure whether to feel relieved or annoyed to know they would be lurking out there, ready to rush to his defense if they started to hear sounds from the office that suggested Sam Wilson was murdering him.

There the two of them stood, Sam continuing to glare menacingly down at Louis. Suddenly the American shook his head and then started to speak. His voice sounded rough from suppressed tears.

"I don't even know what I should say to you. I thought I had it all planned out. Thought I knew just what I wanted to say. But now …"

He paused and shook his head again. Then the words burst out once more. "How can you look the same as always?" Sam demanded. "How can you stand there looking like nothing's changed, when _he's_ out there dead?"

Fighting hard not to look or sound intimidated, Louis felt desperately grateful that at least he knew he had good news to tell Sam. If he didn't have that comforting fact to hang onto, he would be facing a much harder fight. He said steadily, "You want to ask me about Ricky?'

"Ask you about 'Ricky!'" Sam echoed, with bitter disbelief. "Yeah. I do. I want to ask you about your _dear Ricky_." Words rushed from Sam like a long dammed-up river. "You were supposed to be his friend, _Louis_. Always cozying up to him. Smarming all over him. I guess he wasn't so _dear_ to you after all. All you wanted was your roulette winnings. And whatever fun you could get out of him. And when he needed someone to grab hold of him, somebody to hold him back from throwing himself off the edge, you let him go."

Louis could have pointed out that, in the fiction of their cover story, he'd been unconscious when Rick drove away to that beach, so how had he been supposed to hold Rick back from the edge? But he didn't want to waste any time in lying to Sam.

The sooner he got out the truth, the sooner Sam should stop wanting to kill him.

"Mr. Wilson," Louis said, "we do need to talk about this. But I would prefer not to talk about it here."

Maybe it _was_ absurdly paranoid for him to fear his office was bugged. But there was too much at stake for him to risk assuming it wasn't. He hadn't gone through all that shit yesterday and this morning just to turn around now and give the game away to Herr Auer and his minions.

So Louis asked Sam, "Have you been out to the place where the car was found? To the beach? That's where I think we should go. If you will come with me, we can talk about him there."

From the suspicious look Sam gave him, he concluded that Sam was likely just as paranoid as Louis was himself. Of course, it did have to be said that both of them had fairly good motivations for their paranoia.

"You want me to go with you to Abderrahmane Beach?" Sam growled. "Why? So you can kill me and claim I decided to end it all out there, just like Rick did?"

"I rather think," Louis said, "that my life is in more peril from you than yours is from me. Nonetheless, I am willing to take the risk. I will place myself in your hands, because I feel the best place for us to speak about him is there."

He knew it was a pretty damned unconvincing argument. Still, just in case the office _was_ bugged, he didn't want to let the cat out of the bag by uttering, here, the code words Rick had taught him.

Sam was still eyeing him narrowly. He didn't look one bit as though he would go along with Louis' suggestion. Proud of himself for still sounding fairly calm and casual, Louis asked, "Did you come here by car?"

"Yeah," Sam said, his voice flat. "The car's outside." For what felt an excruciating length of time, the pianist just stared at Louis. "You really want me to drive you out to the beach?" he asked at last. "All your boys will think you're crazy to risk it. Maybe you are crazy. If I decide to go with you, I don't know who's crazier, you or me."

Louis took the risk of smiling sadly at the angry man. "Then why don't we be crazy together?" he suggested. "It seems, somehow, a fitting thing for us to do—in honor of Rick."

Sam kept on staring. Finally he growled, "I can't believe I'm doing this." He took his hands out of his coat pockets and gestured with ironic graciousness toward the door. "After you, Captain."

All along the corridor, down the staircase and through all the offices downstairs, they had to run the gauntlet of every member of the Casablanca Municipal Police force who believed the two of them leaving the building together was a really, really bad idea. Most of the police didn't go quite so far as to voice their objections aloud. But by the time they reached the front door, Louis and Sam had attracted a sizable entourage of desperately concerned policemen.

Lieutenant Casselle was one who did not hesitate to speak his mind. He kept pace with Louis and the pianist, walking beside his captain and maintaining a quiet, running commentary of suggestions. In calm and equally quiet tones, Louis shot down each of the lieutenant's proposals, which included having a police officer drive them to the beach, letting some officers accompany them, or at the very least permitting a squad to follow in a separate car.

At the entrance to the Central Commissariat's main lobby, Louis stopped and finally turned to face his unhappy lieutenant. "Vincent," he said, in hopefully pacifying tones, "we are leaving now. I promise you it will be all right. I should be back in …" he consulted his watch and decided, "I should be back here by two o'clock."

"Very well, my captain," Casselle managed, still clearly very far from pleased. "We will look forward to seeing you here again, sir."

The Citroën Coupé which belonged jointly to Rick Blaine and Sam Wilson was parked around the corner, on the Rue Courteline. That luxuriant, vivid blue auto was striking evidence of the spectacularly successful business Rick's Café Américain had been doing a few months after the Café's opening. Today the car's roof was up, which Louis supposed was probably a plus when an automobile was serving as the locale for secret discussions.

As he and Sam got inside the vehicle, Louis noticed its blue wasn't _quite_ as vivid as usual. The car's entire body seemed coated with a thin film of Casablanca's notorious red dust.

 _It makes sense, I suppose,_ Louis thought. _Neither Rick nor Sam are likely to have had much time or inclination for washing their car, over this past week._

They hadn't gone far along the Boulevard Marechal Foch before Sam muttered, "There's a car of your guys following us, a couple blocks back."

Louis took a look behind them. "So there is. I can't say I'm surprised. They're not there at my orders. And I don't think they'll bother us; they're just trying to keep an eye on things. As long as it doesn't look like you're killing me, they'll keep out of our way."

Sam didn't bother making a reply to that. Louis, meanwhile, was pondering whether to start the top-secret conversation in the car, or wait till they reached the beach.

There was something to be said for not waiting any longer than he had to. Balanced on the other side was the risk that Sam's surprise over what Louis had to say might cause him to wreck the car.

Thinking aloud, Louis murmured, "I suppose it isn't very likely this car would be bugged."

"What's that?" growled Sam.

"I was thinking you probably work on the car frequently enough that you would notice anything fishy. For instance, wires appearing where they shouldn't be, that might connect to a radio transmitter."

"Yeah," Sam answered him, deadpan. "I think I'd notice that. You want to tell me what you're talking about, Captain?"

"Yes. I do want to tell you. I didn't think I could risk telling you in my office, in case Herr Auer and his lads have the place bugged."

"Unh-hunh," Sam persisted. "I'm listening."

"Yes," said Louis. "Now, Sam … what I'm going to say to you will be rather surprising. So the question is, do you want me to wait to tell you until you're no longer driving?"

As they were paused at a traffic light, Sam took the opportunity to briefly aim a stare at him. "Do I want you to _wait_? No, _Louis._ I don't want you to wait _._ Whatever you've got to say, I want you to spit it out now."

"You must promise me you won't be so startled that you'll crash the car."

"What the hell!" exclaimed the American, his gaze again on the road ahead of them as he drove on.

"I mean it," Louis told him stubbornly. "I sincerely do not want you to be so amazed at this that it gets both of us killed."

Sam Wilson inhaled and exhaled several long, deep breaths. "Okay, Captain," he said at last. "I promise. I'm going to exercise superhuman self-control. Whatever you say to me, I won't crash the car."

"All right. Remember your promise."

"Jesus H. Christ," Sam muttered. "I never heard anybody beat around the bush so much in my life."

"All right," Louis said again. Concentrating hard to be certain he got the words right, he went on, "Rick told me to say to you, 'Henri wants us to finish this bottle and then three more. He says he'll water his garden with champagne before he lets the Germans drink it.'"

For what felt an extremely long time, Sam didn't say anything. Louis noticed, with a kind of abstract interest, the relative pallor of Sam's knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel.

At long last Sam asked, his voice sounding distant and flat, "Why did he tell you to say that?"

"So you'd understand that I'm truly passing along a message to you from him. So you'll believe me when I tell you that Rick is still alive."

There followed another excruciating silence. Finally, his gaze still not leaving the road, Sam gave a shuddering sort of sigh.

Sam said to Louis, "Keep on talking."

So Louis talked. He talked while Sam drove along the Boulevard Marechal Joffre and all along the coast road to Ain Diab and La Corniche. He had more-or-less reached the end of his recital by the time Sidi Abderrahmane Beach hove into view.

"We should still stop at the beach," Sam said. "Otherwise, your guys will think I'm kidnapping you."

Sam parked the Citroën at the roadside, very near the spot where Sergeant Rachane had parked the day before. Heading down the slope to the beach for the second time in two days, Louis glanced back and saw the police car that had followed them, parked just ten meters or so behind the Citroën. Several officers had gotten out of the car and stood leaning against it, watching their captain as he strolled down to the beach.

"So, what do you think?" Louis asked Sam, as they walked side-by-side. "Do you believe the things I've been telling you?"

Sam stopped and turned to face the captain, studying him with what Louis found to be a fairly unreadable gaze.

"I guess I believe you," the piano-player said at last. "Maybe it's just because I want to believe you. I'd sure as hell rather believe Rick is alive than believe he isn't. And … I'd also prefer not having to hate you."

Louis smiled slightly at that. "Thank you," he answered. "I appreciate the sentiment."

Turning quickly away, Louis looked ahead of them and pointed. "The car was just up there," he said, "by the end of that spur of rock. Why don't we stop here, if you don't mind?" he continued. "I would prefer not getting my shoes wet out here for two days running."

Sam nodded. He stood with his hands in his overcoat pockets, staring out at the sea.

It was an odd-feeling overcast day, with no wind. _Or maybe,_ Louis thought, _maybe that odd feeling is only inside my head._

Maybe it was part of the hangover from his dream. The seeming stillness of the gray air and the silver-gray ocean suddenly struck Louis as both menacing and mocking.

 _Don't be an idiot,_ he told himself. _The ocean isn't still at all. You can see the damned waves._

 _You aren't dreaming. You don't have to worry that a platoon of Nazis—or Major Strasser and the girls in rhinestones and feathers—will march at you out of the water._

He hoped Sam Wilson was thinking more productive thoughts than he was. That did seem a strong probability. The next thing Sam said was, "All right. Well, then. If you and Dave King end up working on something together, and you think you could use my help, you know where you can find me."

Louis restrained himself from letting out an audible sigh of relief. He asked Sam carefully, "Then you will be staying on at Rick's?"

Sam nodded. "I told Rick I would. Someone has to be there to keep an eye on things; make sure Ferrari doesn't cheat the staff too much. Anyway," he added with a smile that seemed to mock himself, "everyone keeps on telling me Rick's wouldn't be Rick's without me."

Louis gave a small bow. He remarked, "You may add my opinion on that point to support the statements of everyone else."

Now Sam's smile almost certainly included Louis in its mockery. He said, "And you would like to get back to winning at roulette as soon as possible. Speaking of which," Sam went on, as Louis bowed again, "any idea when we can re-open Rick's?"

"It should be very soon. The demise of Major Strasser removed the motivating reason for keeping the place closed. Come to think of it, I'm surprised Signor Ferrari hasn't yet been to see me about that."

Sam nodded. "I'm planning to go see him today, after I drop you off back at work. He 'phoned to say he wants to meet to talk about the café—and, of course, he wants to sound me out and see if I know what's happened to Rick. I'll let him know you're expecting him."

"Lovely," Louis said. "So you and I can both look forward to mental and verbal fencing sessions, as we strive to prevent Signor Ferrari from plumbing our depths."

The piano player shrugged. "Shouldn't be too tough. You can be your enigmatic self. And I just have to grin a lot and say 'yassuh' and 'nosuh.' No," he went on, thoughtfully, "I guess I shouldn't grin, after all. I'm supposed to be grieving for Rick. Well, I can still say 'yassuh' and 'nosuh'"

Neither of them said anything after that, for long enough that Louis decided it must be time to head back up the beach. Then he noticed that Sam was gazing toward Sidi Abderrahmane Island.

Sam asked him, "Have you ever gone out to the island?"

"Twice," Louis answered. "Once just to see the sights, and once on an arrest."

"Rick and I went out there one time," Sam remembered, "just a little while after Rick's opened up. We didn't go into any of the buildings. Mostly we just wandered around watching all the chickens and goats folks bring as offerings. But there was this one old fortune-teller guy sitting at the corner of a building. You know the type, all rags and beard; looked like he was old enough to have known Sidi Abderrahmane in person."

"I know the type," Louis confirmed quietly, hoping Sam would go on with whatever it was he meant to say.

"The guy didn't ask us to cross his palm with silver or anything, and we didn't stop to talk with him. Just all of a sudden we noticed him staring at Rick. He stares at Rick and gives him this weird grin, and then he hobbles right up to Rick and says, 'God still has plans for you.'"

Louis raised his eyebrows. "Oh?" he inquired. "And what did Rick say?"

"Nothing, at first; he just looked at the guy. The guy wasn't finished, though. He pokes Rick in the chest and tells him, 'You think your journey is finished. But God has other plans.'"

Now Louis grinned. "I can imagine how much Rick must have loved hearing that."

"Yeah," snorted Sam. "Just _exactly_ what Mr. I-stick-my-neck-out-for-nobody didn't want to hear. So Rick's comeback was, 'Unless His plans call for me to be a saloon-keeper, He's going to be disappointed.'"

Louis commented, "Good line."

For several moments the two of them stood gazing out at the island, white buildings a stark glow against the gray of sky and sea.

Sam said, "I've been wondering if Rick has thought about that old guy at all, since all of this started." Then he turned and looked toward the police car by the roadside. "You ready to go, Captain?" he asked. "Before your boys back there keel over from the suspense?"

"Yes," said Louis. "That is probably a good idea."

The policemen piled back into their car as Louis and Sam approached the Citroën. Louis noticed that just like yesterday, Sergeant Rachane was driving. When Sam drove past the spot where the police car waited, Louis couldn't resist giving Rachane and his fellows a cheerful little wave.

The remainder of Louis' work day proved surprisingly quiet. He fully expected Signor Ferrari to descend upon him, but the magnate of Casablanca's shady transactions failed to make his appearance. Louis presumed that was a pleasure he could look forward to tomorrow.

In the meantime, he seemed to be in the interval between two acts of the play. Not that Louis felt completely sanguine about this temporary respite.

Consul-General Auer, Louis reflected, was the kind of villain who grows more menacing off the stage than when he is standing on it. When he couldn't see what nefarious deeds Auer or his goons were up to, Louis was free to imagine all manner of disasters heading his way.

He believed he still ought to stay at work a little later than usual. It was too soon for him to act as though he had resumed his normal life. But when six o'clock rolled around, he decided that was late enough. He would give the rest of the police force the gift of removing his presence from their midst.

Louis walked briskly the few blocks to the King of Beer Café. The lights of the Place de France didn't look as brilliant as he remembered from before the war. But he told himself they were quite brilliant enough.

The cutlet on which he dined was as tastily prepared as the King of Beer's cutlets always were. However, the most memorable aspect of that dinner was his waitress. Waiting on him was none other than rosy-cheeked Aline Lenaert, the appealing little Belgian miss who had been Louis' most recent date.

One week ago yesterday, Miss Lenaert had spent the night at Louis' apartment. In return, Louis had renewed her work permit, and had secured for her this very job as waitress at the King of Beer.

Tonight the pretty Aline seemed eager to show her gratitude to the prefect of police. She was all charming smiles and expressive glances. Every time she spoke with him she contrived to lean over at the angle precisely calculated to provide him with the most direct view into her cleavage. She did not actually sit down on him, as the rhinestone-clad girl in Louis' dream last night had done to Major Strasser. But Miss Lenaert probably _would_ have sat in Louis' lap, if it were not against the code of conduct for employees at the King of Beer.

Louis smiled politely and made gallant comments, but the truth of the matter was that Miss Lanaert's conduct worried him.

On the whole, he did not believe it good practice to continue relations with a woman after she and he had conducted one of his celebrated mutually-beneficial transactions. For him to have another liaison with the same woman, after they had each achieved what they wanted, might send her signals which he had no intention of sending.

It was an ironic peril he faced—a peril about which Rick Blaine would doubtless mock him without mercy, if he learned Louis was worrying about it—that in his standard exchanges involving bureaucratic assistance and sex, he ran the risk of the women becoming attached to him and expecting some kind of commitment.

That concern was the ordinary reason why he would now keep his distance from the delectable Miss Lanaert. But now, thanks to General Béthouart, he had an additional cause for worry.

Thanks to the good general, this evening the pretty Belgian's loving glances and exposed cleavage started him wondering whether Consul-General Auer had Aline Lenaert in his pay.

 _Of course not,_ Louis told himself scornfully. _That is simply stupid. There would be no reason for Herr Auer to set up a sting operation involving Aline._

 _I have already provided her work permit and her job. Any further interaction between us would not be in the nature of a misdeed which could get me fired. It would be merely the harmless pastime of two consulting adults—not an officially unacceptable exchange of sex for bureaucratic aid._

If Theodor Auer did want to set up a trap for him, the women Louis should watch out for were those with whom he had _not_ had any previous exchange. Any adorable new refugee who planted herself in his way and began pouring forth an eyelash-fluttering tale of woe, suddenly seemed worrisomely likely to be Herr Auer's agent.

 _The devil take you and your warnings, my dear General Béthouart!_ Louis thought crossly. _What have you done to me? As if I weren't paranoid enough already._ Now _you'll have me looking out for a sting operation every time a pretty refugee glances in my direction!_

As the result of these uncomfortable musings, Louis manfully resisted the fair Aline's advances. He walked home from the King of Beer alone, in a sour mood that seemed to grow more unpleasant with each step.

Things were no better back home in his apartment. The more he contemplated his predicament, the more aggrieved he became.

To rub salt into his wounds, it was a Saturday night.

On any ordinary Saturday, he would be on a date right now. Sometime during the day he would have delved into his file of contact information and he would have set up a date with one of the lovely lady refugees on his list.

If it weren't for General Béthouart and Herr Auer, the most likely chance was that his date for tonight would be that breathtaking blonde, Evdokiya Saroff. After all, he'd had to cancel their previously-scheduled date on Thursday night, due to the little matter of his supposedly being about to arrest Victor Laszlo for the murder of those two German couriers.

 _But now,_ Louis thought grimly, _if I obey the general's orders, the ravishing Mrs. Saroff and all the other charmers on my list are suddenly off-limits._

So here he was, on a Saturday night—and he had not had a date in over a week.

It was a rare phenomenon, these days, for Louis Renault to go more than a week without his apartment being the scene of an overnight visit by one lady or another. Even before he'd gotten his sex-and-permits racket worked out last summer, he had usually enjoyed the pleasures of feminine companionship once or twice a week, although not all of those liaisons culminated in visits that lasted through the night. Only when Casablanca was in the midst of a crisis more drastic than usual: such as in June of last year, when the first refugee ships began arriving, or during the typhus epidemic in the winter of '38 to '39—or, on a very much smaller scale, that stubborn bout of bronchitis he'd had last winter—only at such times was there typically any slow-down in his social schedule.

He supposed Major Strasser's sojourn in town, and that sojourn's dramatic end, was a fitting addition to the list of disasters, Acts of God and irritations which had curtailed his social life. Louis wondered if the three doormen of Les Studios had been holding bets with each other on how long it would be before Captain Renault welcomed his next female visitor.

He was extremely tempted to say the hell with General Béthouart's orders, and to give Mrs. Saroff or some other likely prospect a call. The trouble was that as little as he wanted to go without feminine companionship, he also had no wish to be "hoist on his own petard." He hated the thought of suffering sudden, enforced chastity, but he also hated the prospect of cutting his throat with his own stupidity. It really would show that he had all the reasoning capability of a cheese, if he went against Béthouart's advice and then lost his job in precisely the way that Béthouart had warned him he would lose it.

Still glumly pondering, Louis divested himself of his uniform and changed into pajamas, smoking jacket and slippers. Thus clad, and sipping a glass of brandy, he was standing gazing at his autographed Josephine Baker poster when his mind suddenly rebelled.

 _No,_ he told himself, _this is pathetic and absurd. I will not allow Béthouart and Auer to dictate my social life for me. I am not going to accept the fact that it's a Saturday at barely even nine p.m., and I'm already set to retire for the night like some damned old man._

If he felt he couldn't risk 'phoning any of the refugee ladies on his list, he would just have to resort to less career-threatening methods of acquiring female company.

Swiftly he began sorting in his mind through the various ladies of his acquaintance who weren't prostitutes by profession, but who might be reasonably expected to wind up in bed with any man they went out with.

He thought an especially good prospect was Marianne Janvier, the leader of the corps of usherettes at the Cinema Rialto. He and she had been out together several times a few years ago, when Louis had recently arrived in town. As far as he knew, she was not currently attached. Earlier in the year she'd been dating a Rumanian of dubious profession and no fixed abode, but that fellow had recently secured his entrance visa to Brazil or some such place, and had departed Casablanca.

There seemed every likelihood that Miss Janvier would be at the Rialto right now, and that she would also be at liberty to join Captain Renault for the rest of the night, at the conclusion of the cinema's final showing of the evening.

Louis started upstairs in order to don his uniform once again. As his foot touched the bottom step, a strident buzz called his attention to the intercom by the front door.

 _What the devil?_ Louis wondered. He strode back to the door, punched the intercom's button and demanded, "Yes?"

"Captain Renault," came the voice of Ayoub the afternoon-and-evening doorman. "There is a young lady asking if she may come up and see you."

 _What in heaven's name now?_ he asked himself. It was flattering, but admittedly unlikely, to imagine young Miss Lenaert was so eager for a second night with him that she'd turned up here after ending her shift at the King of Beer.

"Could you find out this young lady's name?" Louis requested.

There was a pause while Ayoub did as he'd asked. Then the answer came, "Miss Yvonne Lebeau."

 _Miss Yvonne Lebeau,_ Louis thought in surprise.

 _Miss Yvonne Lebeau who is Mr. Richard Blaine's most recent ex-girlfriend. Miss Yvonne Lebeau who, just Wednesday night, was at Rick's Café on a date with a Nazi officer._

 _So what is this going to be? Simply another round of me recounting my tale of how I failed to stop poor Rick from committing suicide?_

 _And has Yvonne come here on her own behalf? Or is she here on a special assignment from Consul-General Auer?_

"Thank you, Ayoub," Louis said. "Please ask Miss Lebeau to come straight up."


	5. Chapter 5: Saturday, December 6, Night

**_The Unusual Suspect_**

 **A _Casablanca_ Fanfiction**

 **Chapter Five:**

 **Saturday, December 6, 1941: Night**

When the doorbell rang, Louis opened the door at once. Yvonne looked awkward and uncomfortable and was nervously twisting her handbag in her hands. She wore a plain brown coat and a modest beige-colored day dress, strikingly unlike the flashy and revealing outfits she wore to Rick's.

Louis tried to recall what Yvonne's job was. He thought he remembered it being some kind of a shop girl position. She was a salesgirl in the Singer Sewing Machine Company showroom, maybe.

"Come in, my dear," Louis said, stepping aside for her. "What a pleasant surprise it is to see you."

"Thank you, Captain," Yvonne whispered as she walked inside his apartment. He could follow the progression of thoughts on her face as she suddenly realized that she was staring at the unfamiliar sight of the prefect of police in his pajamas and smoking jacket. Her cheeks went attractively rosy with embarrassment. "I'm sorry for staring, Captain Renault," she murmured hastily, "it is only that I've never seen you out of uniform before."

Smiling, he told her, "If I'd known you'd be coming, I would have opted for more formal attire. May I take your coat?"

She nodded and allowed him to help her out of the coat. When he turned to face her again, after hanging up her coat in the closet beside the front door, he thought in puzzlement about the expression on her face. He was still pondering it as he offered, "Will you have a drink?"

"No," Yvonne blurted, confirming that she was in a thoroughly uncharacteristic frame of mind. Never before had Louis heard of Yvonne Lebeau declining the offer of a drink.

He thought the look on her face was pain: raw and agonizing pain of the kind that could cause a person to scream, or to weep, or to lash out. Yvonne clutched her handbag as though it were a chicken and she was wringing its neck. Her words burst out of her, "I'm here because Rick is dead."

Remembering that he was supposed to be as much in the dark about Rick's fate as everybody else, Louis asked sharply, "Is there proof of that? Has his body been found?"

"No … not that I have heard. But he must be dead, mustn't he? It is what everyone is saying."

He allowed his gaze to drop from hers, as though he was contemplating that melancholy fact. "Yes," he admitted. "I suppose it's most likely that he is."

"I keep thinking of it," Yvonne's words raced on. "I cannot bear it. I think of how he will look when they find him—if they find him. I think about his body, all bloated … and his face, eaten away by the crabs … Oh, Captain!" she cried suddenly, and she flung herself into his arms. "Oh, Captain Renault, I cannot bear it."

Louis stood there feeling a bit amazed. He stroked her hair and her back, while she got his face wet with her tears.

Bemusedly, he recalled that today was Saint Nicholas' day. He had forgotten that fact, until now.

 _Maybe it wasn't Consul-General Auer who sent her to me,_ he thought. _Maybe Saint Nicholas thinks I have been a good boy, and has sent me Yvonne as a present._

 _Although if Saint Nicholas thinks I have been a good boy, then it's got to be said that the saint has some rather unconventional standards._

"Captain," Yvonne sobbed against him, "please don't send me away from you. I can't be alone tonight. I keep thinking of Rick touching me … and of what his hands must be like now. Please, Captain, let me be with you tonight. Tonight I need to be touched by someone who is alive."

 _Well, well,_ Louis thought, in slightly offended bemusement. _This is a change of pace. Over this past year and a half, women have ordinarily come to me because I can provide them with a work permit, or a residency permit, or I can help start the wheels of bureaucracy turning to secure them a visa to the country of their choice._

 _This time, my sole attraction is the fact that I'm alive._

He told himself he didn't really have much reason to feel put out. If anything, he should find it flattering that _he_ was the particular live man she had chosen. After all, he reminded himself, Yvonne had no shortage of other living men to choose from. Sascha the bartender, for one, always seemed like he'd be ready to fall into bed with her if she so much as wiggled her eyebrows at him. If Yvonne were to go so far as to actually wiggle her hips, Sascha would be her own for life.

Louis reached up and gently took hold of her face. He stepped back from her so he could meet her gaze as he wiped away her tears. "Don't worry, my dear," he told her, "I'm not going to send you away. If you really won't have a drink, would you care to go upstairs to my room?"

"Yes," she answered urgently. "Please, yes, Captain. Now."

Yvonne abandoned her handbag on the bureau beside the telephone—having finally ceased her efforts to wring the handbag's neck—and she and the prefect of police started up the stairs. The prefect was pondering the surprising turn his night had taken.

His body, of course, was delighted by this turn of events. It was always glad to rise to the occasion in situations such as this—as that portion of his anatomy most directly concerned in the matter was noticeably pointing out to him. Yvonne's unexpected visit was like a free bonus: a pleasure-filled encounter that had come about despite his doing nothing to achieve it. He had made no telephone call, bought no dinner, promised no bureaucratic assistance, had not even made an expedition to the Cinema Rialto; yet here he was, on the way to his bedroom with a most desirable—and apparently extremely eager—partner.

Yes, his body was thrilled, and he thought his mind was relatively pleased, as well—but he couldn't deny that his mind was adding some peculiar elements to the mix. For one thing, he found himself wondering if Rick was the lover Yvonne had been with most recently. Probably he was, Louis thought, judging by Yvonne's clear desperation to escape from the feeling of a drowned man's hands on her flesh.

Louis seldom thought about his partners' previous lovers. In the midst of his many amorous liaisons, he was skilled at keeping his focus on the present and not allowing his thoughts to be troubled by his own past or by anybody's else's. And he wasn't exactly troubled now. But as they walked up the stairs, with his arm around Yvonne's waist, Louis' brain presented him with a startlingly vivid image. His imagination was dancing along a path he did not think he wanted it to take, creating an almost tangible vision of Yvonne making love with Rick.

Even more startling to him was the fact that the relevant part of his anatomy jumped appreciatively in response.

 _You just wait your turn,_ Louis thought at it. _You know very well you'll be taken care of in due course._

He wasn't going to think about it being odd that his response had resulted from imagining the activities of the naked Yvonne and the equally unclad Rick.

The women who visited him frequently liked to stop in at the W.C. before joining him in his bedroom, but Yvonne did not follow that pattern. Louis was starting to suspect that if he showed the least sign of delaying, she would drag him into his room by force. As it was, he barely had time to switch on the lamp that sat on his bedside table before Yvonne was once again all over him.

While they kissed, and while he and she both started working to undo the buttons of her dress, he thought of another probable reason why she had chosen him—besides the fact of his simply being alive. He was willing to bet that tonight, Yvonne felt she could not bear the risk of being turned down, or of the man she chose not giving her what needed. Thanks to his well-deserved reputation, she knew Captain Renault was one man who would neither turn her down nor fail to give her the satisfaction she was seeking.

It took barely any time before Yvonne's dress lay pooled on the floor, revealing her slim, lithe form attractively packaged in pale pink underwear. It occurred to Louis that Yvonne Lebeau was wasted as a sewing machine salesgirl. She ought to be working as a model for pinup photographs. Feeling it was never fair to allow the woman to do all the stripping—and also being extremely fond of the feel of skin against skin—he swiftly sent his smoking jacket and his pajama shirt onto the floor to join her dress.

After only a slight bit more of their mutual explorations, her underthings were off as well, and she stood there clad only in her high-heeled shoes—another sight that Louis thought would make an excellent pinup picture. The thought struck him, then, that Richard Blaine had impeccable taste in women.

Ilsa Lund, of course, really did deserve the grandiose praise Louis had bestowed on her: the most beautiful woman ever to visit Casablanca. Miss Lund was in a category apart, one occupied only by herself. But although Yvonne Lebeau was far more of an ordinary human being, Louis still found her to be a thorough delight. She had the face of an angel—a frequently pouting and even more frequently inebriated angel—and her body was one that an artist might hail as his ideal depiction of youth, vigor and grace, if the artist had the same exact tastes as Louis Renault.

At this moment, of course, she was not permitting Louis much opportunity to just appreciate the sight of her. Kissing him and skillfully stroking his flesh that was straining to break free from the silk of his pajamas, she murmured against his mouth, "Please, Captain Renault. Please. Make me forget."

He vowed, "I will do my best."

They were standing right beside the bed, and with only a little maneuvering Louis got them turned around so that the backs of Yvonne's legs pressed up against the edge of the mattress. She would have obligingly fallen back onto the bed if he had allowed her to, but he seized hold of her arms and firmly held her in place. There was plenty they could achieve with her standing up.

Louis granted himself the pleasure of lavishing some attention on her firm young breasts, kissing and suckling a little at them both in turn. Then he knelt before her while he slowly kissed his way lower. He had his hands on her hips and buttocks now, both appreciating the feel of them and predicting that soon he would again find he needed to hold her in place. Yvonne gave a moan of anticipation as his kisses traveled down her belly. He promised himself that her anticipation would shortly be fulfilled.

At last he was kissing her soft curls and the even softer flesh beneath. And then he set his tongue to work, enjoying as always the chance to demonstrate one of his greatest skills.

Yvonne gasped and her entire body jolted as his tongue found precisely the right spot. He kept tight hold of her, his fingers kneading her buttocks while his tongue showed off its skillfulness in front.

 _God,_ he thought, _God, I love this._

He loved being able to do this to women. He savored the surprise it seemed to cause to so many of them, and he adored every single one of the thousand different sounds they made to show their appreciation. He treasured each one of their tiny, quiet noises, and all of their noises that could by no definition ever be classed as quiet. He loved every gasp, moan, whine, whimper and squeal and the occasional full-throated scream, and he loved the fact that he was the one conjuring these reactions from them.

Yvonne, he noticed, made an interesting kind of moan. Her moans seemed crossed with humming, and had an almost musical sound. One of her hands painfully gripped hold of his hair, but he was more than used to that.

His flesh was straining more vehemently than ever to escape from the pajamas, but he was used to that, too. After all these years of practice, Louis had his body well trained in what to expect. It knew that the woman's pleasure had to be tended to first, for it to earn any serious attention for itself.

That was the gentlemanly way of going about things, after all. It was also eminently practical. Diligent work to secure the woman's pleasure typically achieved wonders in smoothing the way for him, later on in the proceedings.

As he listened to Yvonne's sweet moaning hums, he wondered, _Did she make these same sounds for Rick?_

 _Did Rick do to her what I am doing to her now?_

One might have expected that sort of thought would have a dampening effect on his enthusiasm. Just the opposite proved to be the case. He heard himself making his own little purring sounds of pleasure as his tongue kept on working and he pictured the scene in his mind.

He imagined Rick, this time fully clad in the usual dinner-jacketed outfit he wore while presiding over the Café Américain, kneeling before the naked Yvonne and worshiping her soft, piquant flesh just as Louis was doing now. He imagined Yvonne making for Rick the same high-pitched wail she had just made for him, in contrast to her more usual, musical moans. He imagined Rick taking a pause to look up at Yvonne's face and to give a triumphant grin. He wondered why his thoughts were focusing quite so much on Rick's grinning face and on the delighted sparkle he imagined in Rick's eyes.

 _Ricky, my dear boy,_ Louis thought, _I am almost always glad to see you. But you will be doing me a favor if you get out of my mind now. Your presence here is rendering things rather more peculiar than I am comfortable in dealing with._

He definitely had enough to which he should pay attention in reality, without complicating matters with his bizarre thoughts of Rick.

Yvonne's moans were sounding ever faster. She had let go of Louis' hair, and he had the sensation that she might actually float away if he wasn't holding on to her. In his hands and in his tongue he could feel that the quivering tension through all her body was very soon to snap.

Yvonne forced out some words. "Captain, I can't—I can't—"

Just what she felt she couldn't do, she did not manage to say. Yvonne writhed and wailed and thrust herself against him. As the tremor surged through her, Louis heard her sob out, "Oh, Rick!"

He kept hold of her for some time longer, keeping her pressed to him as his tongue's movements grew more gentle and then slowed. At last he moved back a little, planting one final kiss on her sweet, soft mound of flesh and curls. Then he obeyed her grasp on his arms that was urging him to his feet.

She looked happy, he was glad to see. The sparkle in her eyes reminded him oddly of the sparkling-eyed look he'd imagined for Rick. Louis thought that Yvonne probably didn't even realize she had called out Rick's name. He thought if she did know it, she would be looking a very great deal less happy.

Yvonne Lebeau gave Captain Renault a delighted little grin, and she told him, "I knew you were the right man for me to visit tonight." Before Louis could think of an appropriately gallant reply to that, she continued in a husky whisper, "And now, Captain, it's time for you to join in."

"I haven't exactly been idle, my dear," he pointed out.

Her grin growing more teasing and amused, she told him, "You know what I mean."

Louis intended to answer that indeed he knew what she meant. But at that moment she captured his mouth with hers.

Some women, he knew, felt uncertain about kissing when he had just been seeing to their pleasure in that particular way. Tasting herself on his mouth was not something that appealed to every woman of his acquaintance. He was not surprised to learn that on that score, Yvonne suffered no qualms whatsoever.

As they kissed, she began working to free him from his pajama bottoms. That final item of clothing swiftly joined her dress and her under-things on the floor. Louis' slippers and Yvonne's shoes were soon added to the pile of clothes, and then the two of them were kneeling together on the bed, tightly pressed against each other and engaging in some feverish kissing. Louis knew many women who tended to be rather languid after their initial pleasure had been seen to, but true to her previous pattern, there was nothing the least bit languid about Yvonne.

He had wondered if, once she had achieved an orgasm from their encounter, she would hope to get the rest of this process completed as swiftly as possible. It wouldn't be a surprising wish on her part, since she had only come to him in her grief-stricken search for distraction from Rick's supposed death.

But perhaps—he thought as he purred in appreciation of what her hands were now doing to his flesh—that cynical interpretation did not have to be correct.

 _Perhaps,_ he thought, _perhaps the dear girl is simply very, very eager …_

Bearing testimony to her eagerness was the fact that she now was making every effort to impale herself on him. And this fact, while pleasing, did mean he had to interpose a brief pause in their proceedings.

He lifted her up off him slightly and silenced her little squeak of protest with a kiss. "You must excuse me, my dear," he said, "for just a moment." Having freed himself from her enough to make that much motion possible, he reached over to open the drawer in his bedside table and took out one of the paper packets of condoms. Returning to the flushed and panting young woman in his bed, Louis inquired politely, "I hope it will not bother you if I use one of these?"

Yvonne's eyes widened in what seemed to be happy surprise. "You use those, too?" she asked. "So does Rick—"

As she suddenly realized what she had said, her expression crumpled into grief. "I mean," she forced out miserably, "so _did_ Rick."

Louis dropped the package onto the bed and clasped Yvonne's face between his hands. "He may still be alive," he told her. "You have to believe that. No one has the right to make you give up hope."

Yvonne gulped back a little sob. "You are right, Captain," she gasped out. "I have to keep hoping—until they find him."

Though he was used to his partners being sometimes taken aback when he produced the prophylactics, the unexpected insight into the habits of Rick Blaine was a new twist. So was the woman in his bed breaking into tears. He leaned in and gently kissed Yvonne. Then he reached down to retrieve the package, musing, "So Rick uses them, too, does he?"

As he removed the condom from its packaging, Louis smiled, determined he would find a way to make Yvonne smile as well. He speculated, "I wonder, does Rick purchase his condoms from Signor Ferrari?" Deliberately he emphasized the present tense in talking to Yvonne of Rick.

"I—don't know," she murmured. "We never discussed it. We never _have_ discussed it," she corrected the tense of her own words. "Why?" she continued, seeming to welcome the chance to distract herself from crying. "Do you buy yours from Ferrari?"

He nodded. "Mm-hm. By the crate-load. Ferrari is fond of commenting that if my sex drive ever decreases, he will lose one of the most profitable facets of his business."

Yvonne was startled into giggling. "Captain—" she began. Then suddenly she gasped again as he snaked his right hand between her legs and set his forefinger to work on the nub he had lately been ravishing with his tongue. Apparently her recent orgasm had altered Yvonne's sensitivity. She squirmed a little, kept on giggling, and protested, "Captain Renault—oh, God _,_ Captain _,_ that tickles—"

"Is that a bad thing?" he inquired.

"Not—precisely …"

His finger's movement settled into a steady pattern of swirls and firm pushes, calling forth from Yvonne alternating gasps and giggles. Louis advised, "We should distract you from the tickling by giving you something else to focus on. Would you be so kind, my dear, as to help me put this on? My right hand is otherwise occupied … and they are a trifle difficult to don left-handed …"

He wondered if Rick had allowed her to help him with this process, too. However, he decided it really would be going too far if he were to ask her about that.

He thought, _It is weird enough that Rick keeps on popping into my mind. I do not need to learn further details of their activities!_

Yvonne certainly seemed to have no questions over what she ought to do. Her hand and his worked together to top up his firmness, no longer quite at its best as a result of their extended conversation. Then their hands collaborated further in putting the condom to its proper use, as all the while he kept his other hand working on her. Her hand tightened on him most distractingly, every time he made her giggle.

 _She is not crying any more,_ he thought. _I venture to say that my plan of attack is succeeding …_

He kissed her and murmured into the kiss, "My sweet … would it be acceptable if I were to enter you now?"

"Acceptable?" she squealed. "God _damn_ it, Captain! _Get in here right now!"_

She lay back on the bed, for which he was grateful. He wasn't _quite_ as young as he used to be, and his thigh muscles would probably do unpleasant things to him if he and Yvonne consummated their encounter while kneeling.

All of their previous preparatory activities made sliding into her a delightfully easy process. Louis kept his hand at work on her—which certainly seemed to be working for Yvonne. Her giggles faded out, replaced by ever more frequent gasps and moans of "Captain!" His hand moving there brought added enjoyment to him, increasing and subtly altering the tightness and the pressure. His own gasping words now sounded alongside hers, a repeating litany along the lines of "Yvonne … my dear, ah, my dear, my sweet … Yvonne …"

He prided himself on his skill at always saying the right name in bed. As far as he knew, he had never committed the cardinal sin of uttering some other name besides the one of the person he was with. He not only made a point of frequently murmuring the name of the woman in bed with him, he was also adept at remembering the names of his previous partners. He had found that this skill had powerful aphrodisiac uses, should he seek a return engagement sometime after an original encounter. Every woman enjoyed believing that she had been so memorable, a man still recalled her name after only one night together, months or years in the past.

Tonight things were now progressing as per their normal pattern. His gasps of "Yvonne" started coming faster and faster. Her heightened ticklishness clearly did not halt a second orgasm, for suddenly she screamed out "Captain!" and bucked upward. He felt the usual joyous rush as his orgasm overtook him—

And then, suddenly, that night, everything was different. As he rode the tide of ecstatic release, Louis Renault heard himself gasp, "Rick!"

 _Shit!_ he thought, before his climax even fully ended. _Ah, shit, did I really, truly say that?_

Yvonne, God be praised, showed no sign of having heard him, no more than she'd noticed it when she gasped out the same name. Her face—for that moment, at least—showed only vague, unfocused happiness. He leaned down and kissed her, then withdrew and set about disposing of the prophylactic. That mechanical task gave him a few moments in which he could hide his shock and humiliation. To his amazement he realized he actually felt like he was blushing.

 _Never before have I said the wrong name in bed,_ he thought furiously. _And now, the first time I do, it has to be_ that _name?_

When he came back to her, Yvonne still did not seem to have heard or understood him. She was not casting him any kind of a surprised or calculating look, as he thought she might if she had noticed the astonishing blunder just committed by Casablanca's prefect of police. He launched a campaign of kissing her, hoping to distract himself—and Yvonne, if necessary—from the insane thing he had just said.

But distracting himself was a goal he failed to achieve.

He could not avoid the fact that he had called Rick's name when he climaxed, just the same as Yvonne had done earlier. He knew he should at least consider the possibility that he and Yvonne had called Rick's name for the same reason.

 _My dear Louis,_ he told himself, _you are displaying the most spectacularly poor sense of timing._

 _You have known Mr. Richard Blaine for one and a half years. And now—now, when Rick has just gone underground, and when Christ knows when you will ever see him again—_ now _is the time when you confront the chance that you just may be in love with him?_

His thoughts argued back at him, _And what should I have done? Mere hours after Rick went through a tear-jerking farewell that could have been written for the movies, should I then have confronted him with the prospect that a debauched, middle-aged prefect of police might harbor romantic intentions toward him?_

 _If I had told Rick about that, the odds are more than even that he would have rejected me. And a "beautiful friendship" would have turned into just another emotionally entangled mess._

It soon became clear that he was not the only one of them whose emotions were currently entangled. Yvonne, he realized while he was kissing her face, was silently crying again. He set to work kissing away her tears.

Though the tears eventually slowed and then stopped, Yvonne had obviously not returned to any happy frame of mind. Not looking at him, she reached over and seized one of his hands in a grip so hard it brought him a hint of pain.

"My Captain," Yvonne murmured, "what am I going to do?"

He propped himself up on one elbow to gaze down at her. "Do?" he questioned quietly. "About what, sweet one?"

"About my life," was the reply.

"Ah. I am afraid that all of us are asking ourselves that question. And it may be that we will never find the answers."

Yvonne Lebeau turned her beautiful eyes toward him in entreaty. "Captain Renault," she whispered, "do you think I will ever find the right man for me?"

 _Heavenly God,_ Louis thought. This was decidedly bordering on dangerous territory. He had the uneasy feeling that if he said the right thing to her now—or the wrong thing, as far as he was concerned—he might soon find the lovely Yvonne attempting to move in with him. Praying he would navigate his way through this challenge with his usual aplomb, he told her, "I do not see any reason why you would not."

"I thought I had found the right man," she said, her voice turning bitter. "I thought Rick was the right one. Obviously I was not the right woman for him."

"He had his own pain," Louis heard himself saying. "Rick had too much of his own hurt, for him to take yours away."

"You are speaking of him in the past tense, Captain," she pointed out.

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to."

Yvonne whispered, "Do you think Rick really is dead?"

"I don't know," Louis lied. "I hope he is not." He leaned down again and gave her another kiss. "Do you think it is time we had a drink, my dear?"

"Yes, please," she said, her voice tiny.

Louis got out of bed to don his pajama pants and his smoking jacket. Telling Yvonne, "I'll fetch you a dressing gown," he made the quick trip to the guest bedroom and selected from its closet the pale green, lace-trimmed peignoir which was one of several he kept for the use of his visitors. He thought the color of this garment would do best at highlighting the strawberry blonde luster of his current guest's hair. The peignoir had been laundered since its most recent usage, of course. He would never commit the breach of good taste of offering a woman a garment some other guest of his had worn, without making certain that it had been laundered, first.

Yvonne, now once again in her pale pink knickers and brassiere, accepted the peignoir from him gratefully. He offered his arm to her and they walked down the stairs together. In their current garb, they struck him as an amusing parody of a high society couple descending to attend an elegant dinner party.

He soon had both of them supplied with glasses of brandy. Yvonne settled herself attractively beside him on the sofa. The combination of the sofa's dark green hue and the pale green and pink of her clothing made her look to him like some little flower fairy perched atop a lily pad. Then he sighed at this reminder that no man could escape his childhood. His father's odd folkloric obsessions could still have him seeing fairies anywhere.

After taking a sip of her brandy, Yvonne studied him solemnly and then asked, "You are not looking for the right woman, are you, Captain?"

For a guilty moment he wondered if she meant he was looking for the right man, instead. But there was no reason to suppose she had any inkling about that—since she'd apparently failed to notice his mortifying "Rick."

"No, my dear girl _._ I'm afraid I am not. I am looking, instead, for many right women, on many different nights."

Meeting his eyes, she asked the straightforward question, "Why?"

"Why not?" he automatically quipped. But he did believe that her question deserved a thoughtful answer.

"Forgive me for joking about it." He took a brief pause in which he marshaled his thoughts.

"I do not wish to owe anything to anyone. I don't want to feel I must explain myself, or defend my actions, to anyone except myself. I want to enjoy my life while I can, without being made guilty by the knowledge that someone else is waiting for me. I want to be …" He fell back on the bit of poetry he had tried to quote to Rick, a few nights before. "I want to be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. And I do not want there to be a captain's mate at home, getting more and more aggrieved at me because I am late and the dinner is getting cold."

"The captain's mate wouldn't have to be at home," Yvonne observed, with more insight than he might have expected from her. "If she was the right woman, she would be there enjoying life with you."

"I know she would," Louis admitted with another sigh. "But I am not asking her to." He took a rather sizable swallow of his brandy.

 _And it is all true, what I just said to Yvonne,_ he thought. _All of it is true, except that there_ is _someone I could see as the "captain's mate." Someone I could imagine always being with me. There is someone who could truly be the right one._

 _Louis Julien Mathurin Renault, you are a ridiculous fool. Here you are, the most notorious womanizer in all of Casablanca—and at the advanced age of fifty-two years, you begin to realize that the one you wish could be forever by your side is another man._

 _A man who has just gone underground with the Resistance, and who will now be risking his life several times a day, every day of the week._

He and Yvonne were both almost out of brandy. They had come to the point in their night at which he must either offer her another drink, or else tell her that she needed to get some sleep.

As her host, doubtless it was his duty to offer her that drink. But as a man who was at least twice her age and who did have some sense of responsibility, he knew sleep was the much wiser course.

"You must stay the night here, naturally," he told Yvonne.

His guest eyed him uncertainly over her nearly empty glass. "You are sure of that, Captain?" she asked in hesitation. "I … do not wish to impose upon you …"

He had a pretty clear idea of what she must be thinking. After all his talk of wanting no entanglements, he must seem to be venturing dangerously close to commitment by permitting a woman to spend the night in his apartment.

However, he had kept his balance in this situation countless times before. Never had he stumbled off that metaphorical tight-rope. Dismissively he answered, "Nonsense. It will be no imposition. That is what the guest bedroom is for."

Yvonne drained the last of her brandy. For a moment a mulishly rebellious look touched her face. Louis expected she would protest against this shutting-off of her alcohol supply, just as he had several times observed her doing with Rick.

Perhaps it was the authority of his official position which convinced her not to argue with him. Or perhaps in her grief over Rick's probable death, she simply did not retain sufficient energy to lodge a protest.

Captain Renault escorted Yvonne Lebeau upstairs and led the way to the guest bedroom at the far left end of the balcony.

"You'll find towels and soap on the bureau," he told her, "should you wish to bathe tomorrow morning. Please feel free to help yourself to anything you may require."

"Thank you, Captain Renault," Yvonne whispered. He thought his deliberate change in his mode of interaction—from lover and confidant to something more like the gracious host of a guest house—was fulfilling its purpose of creating emotional distance between them. But before he could bid Yvonne good night, she made one last plea for help. "Captain," she said suddenly, " _do_ you believe there's still a chance that Rick is alive?"

Resignedly Louis thought, _Emotional distance be damned_. Clasping her right hand between both of his hands, he said, "I believe there is a chance. I can't deny that the theory of his suicide makes logical sense. But simply because an explanation is logical, it does not always follow that it is true."

"No," she murmured. "It does not. Good night, Captain. Thank you."

"Good night, my dear _._ I hope that you will sleep well."

 _And,_ he thought, as he retired to his bedroom, _to the devil with that joke I made to Victor Laszlo about how no one is supposed to sleep well in Casablanca._

After the couple of days he had just spent—and particularly this day, watching his apartment be searched while chatting with a Nazi spymaster, narrowly avoiding getting murdered by an irate mother hen of a piano player, and then engaging in healthy exercise with Yvonne—he knew he was entitled to a good night's sleep. He also knew that if he tried to sleep now, his mind would again mock his efforts and would keep him relentlessly awake.

He briefly removed his smoking jacket in order to don his pajama shirt, in deference to Casablanca's chill December night air. Then with the smoking jacket again in place, he opened the floor-to-ceiling window and took his cigarette case, lighter and ashtray out onto his little balcony.

As ever, night-time Casablanca under curfew was literally only a shadow of the sparkling vision it ought to be, even though the blackout curtains hadn't been required by law since Marshal Pétain signed his armistice with Germany. The great arteries that were the city's boulevards were still lit up by their streetlights. Here and there pinpricks of light gleamed in windows where the residents had chosen to eschew their blackout curtains. Louis felt a pang of regret for the gaudy glow of all those neon signs he remembered from before the war.

Across the street from him, the park lay black and mysterious, the streetlights on its borders doing nothing to illuminate its depths. And beyond the park, two structures in his line of vision were lit, as always, with uncompromising clarity: Casablanca's main jail, and across the street from it, the Central Commissariat building, his home away from home.

Louis glared across the park's darkness at his workplace's up-to-date, streamlined bulk. In daylight, when the Central Commissariat was camouflaged by the many other sights of the city, he could look out from his balcony without his eyes being assaulted by that ever-present reminder of his work. But at night, he could not escape the sight.

Most of the windows of the various offices had their blackout curtains closed, but there was no disguising the showy glass dome that soared up above the Central Commissariat's main lobby. The lobby's multitude of lights glowed through the dome, making the police station's lobby an absurdly attractive target for any aerial bomber. Louis guessed that if or when French Morocco again found itself actively at war, the police would need to paint all the panes of that ridiculous dome, so it provided a less noticeable target. Always assuming, of course, that they managed to get the painting job completed before whoever was up there bombed them into oblivion.

Louis Renault blew a puff of smoke toward the jail and the Commissariat. For an instant he succeeded in making both of them disappear behind the smoke.

He wondered whether, somewhere out there in Greater Casablanca, Theodor Auer, Hauptmann Heinze and their minions were still at work on the quest to avenge the late Major Strasser.

 _Probably not,_ Louis supposed. _They're probably all nicely tucked up in bed by now, dreaming of flaxen-haired frauleins and world domination._

 _Except for Auer, of course. If he's asleep, then he is dreaming of his doe-eyed Jewish party-boy in Tangier._

 _And, of course, except for all of the poor bastards whose job it is to tail the many enemies of the Reich._

He wondered how many of them were still out there on the streets right now, lurking around the corners of buildings, fighting to keep awake and not to lose the trail of whomever it was they were assigned to watch.

Louis thought, _I wonder if they're having me followed, now, too._

 _Of course they are. Auer wouldn't fall down on the job badly enough_ not _to have a team of spies assigned the job of trailing Captain Renault._

 _Maybe one of them is down there now. Maybe he is looking up at this balcony. Maybe he has noticed the spark of my cigarette in the dark._

 _It is an odd world we live in,_ he told himself, _in which the prefect of police is as much under surveillance as is any of the usual suspects._

 _Ha,_ he thought, _if I am to find German agents around every corner, I shall have to ensure that my sex life becomes even more active than usual—even if I_ can't _keep on offering bureaucratic favors to lovely refugees. I shall enjoy the thought of Auer's spies turning green with envy at the procession of beautiful women whom I will be entertaining._

He was not entirely comfortable with where his thoughts took him next. After thinking of his sex life, the next topic he found himself contemplating was Richard Blaine.

He thought, _I wonder where Rick is now._

Not still in Casablanca, he hoped. No, he was certain David King would have gotten Rick out of the city by now.

He was in Rabat, perhaps. Or he was on his way to Fez. Perhaps he would be traveling further, to Oran or Algiers.

Louis' gaze journeyed up the street from the Central Commissariat to the tall, pale edifice that supposedly would one day be Sacré-Coeur Cathedral. Still barely one-third of the intended building, it rose wan and ghostly in the pale glow from the streetlights. Louis shook his head and eyed that one-third of a cathedral in exasperation. All that Casablanca had to show for ten years' worth of cathedral-construction were the twin towers at the western entryway and a minimal stretch of nave. The construction's pace had been plodding enough already, but since the start of the war it had slowed to scarcely a crawl.

Louis wondered, _Is our blessed cathedral ever going to be finished?_

Of course, he grimly realized, the cathedral never _would_ be finished if Germany won the war.

 _Or at least it won't be finished unless it gets turned into a shrine to Adolph Hitler._

Grimacing, he ordered himself to abandon that disgusting train of thought.

As he sought to think of something else, the idea occurred to him that tomorrow he might go to one of Casablanca's churches that was actually completed, and light a candle in honor of Rick.

Such an action could only help his cover story. It would be a perfectly natural thing for him to do, if he truly believed Rick was dead.

 _And it can't hurt, can it,_ he thought, _if I ask a few saints to lend a hand in helping Ricky stay alive?_

Almost immediately, Louis rejected the notion. He doubted any saints would look with favor on the request of a Catholic who was so thoroughly lapsed he hadn't regularly attended Mass for the past two decades—and hadn't partaken of the Sacrament of Confession since the end of the first World War.

Suddenly Louis slammed down one fist on his balcony's metal railing. The dull ache brought on by that action was nothing, compared to the bitter longing that now surged through his thoughts.

 _Damn it, Ricky!_ Louis thought. _Damn it all!_

 _I wish I had run away with you._

He knew very well their life on the run would not have been as much fun as his fantasies pictured. But he had fun just sitting and talking with Rick. Louis had fun when he and Rick were just drinking and smoking together, enjoying the teasing conversations that the two of them had perfected to an art form.

He knew the picture he imagined was romanticized nonsense. Still, he couldn't help dreaming up a life with Rick that had the feel of an adventure movie: daring exploits and hair's-breadth escapes punctuated by jokes and companionable drinking.

A cold, empty feeling crawled through him. It made him think of the look in Yvonne Lebeau's eyes earlier tonight, when she arrived at his apartment and told him, "I'm here because Rick is dead."

He noticed his cigarette was nearly gone, and he lit the next one from its remnants.

 _It is only one day since you left here, Rick,_ he thought. _It is only one day, and already your absence feels to me like—it feels like a multitude of descriptions of emptiness that are so embarrassingly melodramatic, I will not even permit them to cross my mind._

Sternly Louis reminded himself, _I have more still left to me than most of his other friends have_. _At least I know he is alive. At least I know there is a chance we will see each other again._

Captain Louis Renault watched the towers of the one-third-built Sacré-Coeur Cathedral appear and disappear through the smoke from his cigarette. He watched the pale, ghostly towers in the smoke, and he thought about Rick Blaine.


	6. Chapter 6: Sunday, December 7, 1941

**Author's Note:**

This is the final chapter of this tale, although someday if inspiration strikes me, I may well feel compelled to write more of the adventures of Louis Renault. One brief note: near the end of this chapter, a few words of Russian are used. Those words are translated in a note at the end.

 **The Unusual Suspect**

 **A _Casablanca_ Fanfiction**

 **Chapter Six:**

 **Sunday, December 7, 1941**

When he finally compelled himself to retire to bed, Louis slept surprisingly well. He guessed he probably had Miss Lebeau's visit to thank for that. If he had further dreams about nightclubbing with his father and the late Major Strasser, or about Rick Blaine decked out in some skimpy costume made of fruit, he thankfully did not remember them.

He woke at his customary time of a few minutes before eight, and as usual he was able to shut off his alarm clock before it could disrupt the morning with its jangling call at eight o'clock. After a visit to the W.C., he made his pajamas-and-slippers-clad way along the landing to the guest bedroom.

Yvonne had left the door standing ajar, which he supposed might well have been intended as an invitation. If that was how she'd intended it, he was glad he hadn't accepted. He felt fairly certain that he could still manage two amorous liaisons in one night, although he admitted to himself that he'd likely find it more of a challenge than he would have, say, ten years in the past. But if both of those times were with the same woman, it seemed to him the message he'd be sending bore far too much resemblance to a commitment.

Louis rapped quietly at the guest bedroom door. Hearing no reply, he peeked through the slightly open doorway.

His guest was still asleep, curled on her side with the blanket pulled nearly up to her chin. In the seeming innocence of sleep, Yvonne looked phenomenally young. Louis smiled at the sight of her, but his smile was due less to her beauty than to the simple fact that she was still sleeping. As a result of that, the two of them would not be in conflict over the bathroom.

Satisfied that his morning routine need suffer no disruption today, he headed to the bathroom for a shave and a wash. He thought, _And that is another reason why I should make no commitment to any woman. I am damned if I ever want my morning's schedule to include the struggle to be first to claim the bathroom._

He had shaved, washed, dressed, and was downstairs making coffee before he heard Yvonne stirring upstairs. Since it was a Sunday, he had briefly considered wearing civilian clothes. But he soon discarded that thought.

It was pathetic, he knew. All the same, during his years in Casablanca he'd become less and less comfortable with appearing in public when he was not wearing his uniform.

Rick, he was certain, would make fun of him non-stop if he ever learned about that. Louis fiercely crushed an upwelling of melancholy which accompanied his wish that Rick was here to tease him.

Yes, it was decidedly pathetic that his view of himself had become so intricately intertwined with his official position. He wondered, _When did my self-esteem take such a nose-dive that I now require my uniform in order to feel like myself?_

He enjoyed the hell out of being Captain Louis Renault, Casablanca's prefect of police. He was no longer certain that he actually did enjoy being just plain Louis Julien Mathurin Renault.

But today, he had told himself in irritation as he dressed, he had an additional reason to don his uniform—besides his ridiculously fragile self-image. The odds were about a thousand to one that today he would undergo further questioning. There was bound to be someone who believed they could blow the Blaine-and-Strasser case wide open just by asking Louis Renault the right question. And Louis had no intention of sitting through their questioning without the moral support provided by his uniform.

When she descended the stairs, Yvonne Lebeau certainly looked as though she could use some moral support. She hadn't spent long at her ablutions, judging by the brief time between when Louis first heard her upstairs, and when she hurried down to his living room. Her face was freshly washed and free of makeup—and looked perfectly fine to Louis—but that condition did not endure for long. Yvonne headed straight for her handbag on the bureau, grabbed it up and excused herself to race back upstairs and don her makeup. A few minutes later, she was downstairs again.

Since she had worn a day dress when she called on him last night, she was not now contending with the tawdry appearance of evening clothes viewed in the unaccustomed glare of daylight. All the same, she had an uncomfortable, awkward air about her, even after she was once again wearing the protective armor of her makeup. Louis easily recognized her look as a standard feature of so many mornings-after. It was the expression of a woman who, when the alcohol and adrenaline had worn off, was asking herself if what she'd gotten up to last night was such a good idea after all.

Miss Lebeau smiled at him hesitantly and accepted his offer of a cup of coffee, but there was no disguising the fact that her chief ambition this morning was to leave his apartment as swiftly as possible. Louis had no problems with that. He did hope that, in retrospect, Yvonne would decide he'd provided her with sufficient pleasure to make her visit worthwhile. But from his perspective, the more embarrassed and uncertain she felt now, the less likely she was to try moving in with him.

The two of them stood in the living room, Yvonne swigging her coffee with reckless haste and Louis drinking his at a far more sensible pace. He still had about half a cup left when Yvonne had drained hers to its dregs. "I'll call a cab for you," Louis told her. He took her empty cup and returned it to the kitchen, and then went to the intercom to place a call to Yousef.

"Good morning, Yousef," Louis greeted the young man who the morning before had so gallantly defended his apartment against Theodor Auer and the Consul-General's minions.

Yousef's voice replied with his usual morning cheeriness, a trait which explained why he was the one of Les Studios' three doormen who always took the morning shift. "Good morning to you, Captain Renault. How may I be of service to you?"

"Please be so kind as to call a cab for my guest. She will be leaving in a few minutes."

"Of course, Captain."

Louis retrieved his guest's coat and assisted her into it. "It was good of you to visit me, my dear," he told her quietly.

Yvonne hesitated and then visibly reached a decision. She hurried out the words, "Captain, if you learn anything new about Rick—about what has happened to him—please, will you tell me? I do not have a telephone, but Sascha at Rick's will be able to pass along a message to me." Suddenly she gave a grimace of distaste. "Or," she added, "do you think we will have to say 'Sascha at Ferrari's' from now on?"

"No," Louis stated. "I am certain we will not. Signor Ferrari is far too good a businessman for him to make so disastrous a choice."

She hesitated again. Then, her beautiful eyes eloquent with sorrow, Yvonne said to him, "I know I am not the woman for Rick. I know that. But I want him to be alive. I cannot bear to think that he is not."

Louis admitted, "I feel … much the same way." He wondered how much was safe for him to say to Yvonne Lebeau. How much risk was there that the next time he became aware of her doings, she would again be dating Nazis? Or, indeed, that his fear last night had been correct, and she was here on Herr Auer's bidding?

Then he remembered the tears he had observed on her face while Victor Laszlo led the café's patrons in singing _La Marseillaise._ He decided the risk was not too great.

Firmly he advised her, "So we must both keep on hoping. The Third Reich may believe it can abolish hope for the rest of us, but they have not won the war yet."

He collected his uniform cap from its shelf in the closet and donned it while inspecting his appearance in the mirror beside the front door. Behind him in the mirror, he saw Yvonne gazing at him in surprise. Casting her an impish smile, he added, "Of course, as I am a faithful follower of Vichy, naturally I did not just say any such thing. And you did not hear me say it."

Yvonne gave him the faintest of smiles in return. "No … of course not, Captain," she murmured. "Of course you did not say it. And I did not hear it."

Louis turned and offered her his arm. "Come," he said, "I will escort you to the cab." As a sign that she was in at least a somewhat better frame of mind than she'd been in the night before, Yvonne was no longer wringing her handbag as though she meant to kill it.

As they exited the elevator into Les Studios' lobby, Yousef greeted them with the enthusiastic report, "The cab is here waiting, Captain. And here is your Sunday paper," he continued, bowing slightly as he held out the Sunday edition of _The Moroccan Sentinel_.

"Thank you, Yousef." Louis and Yvonne detached their arms from each other's. Accepting the proffered newspaper, Louis folded it and tucked it under his left arm.

His erstwhile visitor whispered to him, "Thank you, Captain Renault. Thank you for everything."

"Believe me, my dear," he said, bowing to her, "it was my very great pleasure to be of service."

Yousef held the door open for them as they walked outside. After assisting Yvonne into the cab, Louis handed the driver a banknote which should be more than sufficient to cover the girl's journey. It was fitting, he reflected, that he thus assisted a former girlfriend of Rick—since much of his spending-money came from the gambling tables at Rick's.

When the cab had pulled away, he stepped back inside his building's lobby for a moment. "If anyone should call for me," he told Yousef, "I will be breakfasting at the Café du Monde, and then I plan to take a walk in the park. After that, I may go in to the office. If I have not returned by the early afternoon, that is where I will be."

"Yes, Captain. I wish you a very pleasant day, sir."

"Thank you, Yousef; and the same to you."

As he made the short walk up the street to the Café du Monde, the thought came to him that it really _could_ be a pleasant day, if only half the population of Casablanca did not decide they had a pressing need to interrogate him. The weather was doing its best to contribute to the day's pleasures. In contrast to yesterday's gray stillness, today had turned out to be the classic warm, sunny, blue-skied Casablancan December day.

The moment he hove in view of the Café du Monde, its proprietor Anton, the little Vienna-born Parisian pastry chef, came bustling out to greet him.

"Good morning to you, Captain Renault, good morning. It is so very good to see you. I have saved your usual table for you."

It was a good thing Anton had done so, as Louis' was indeed the only table along the sidewalk which was still unoccupied. As he thanked the café-owner and settled into his chair, the uneasy thought once again occurred to Louis that perhaps it _was_ his love of comforts that caused him to still be here, instead of being on the run to Brazzaville with Mr. Richard Blaine.

 _Is that really why I am here?_ he grimly asked himself. _Am I so in love with my charming apartment and its delightful views of the park, with the shopkeepers and restaurateurs who anticipate and cater to my every wish, that I could not bring myself to give all of that up?_

 _Well, and what if that is true?_ he snapped back at himself. _Lazy hedonist or not, you will still be able to do your bit for the Resistance. And you are paying for the maintenance of your little luxuries, by becoming the new favorite interrogation subject for the Third Reich—and for everybody else in town._

He decided to hold a little informal wager with himself on the question of who would be the first to attempt pumping him for answers today. Would it be Nazis, or would it be friends of Rick? Nazis, he supposed, were the better bet. They were more likely to be out and about this early in the day. Rick's friends were likely to have emptied many a bottle in his honor last night, and to still be sleeping off the effects.

While he sipped his coffee and savored one of Anton's delectable croissants, Louis glanced through the pages of _The Moroccan Sentinel._ The disappearance of nightclub-owner Rick Blaine was noted in a brief article deep in the paper's interior. Police had located the car that Blaine had been driving, on a beach near La Corniche, although no mention was made of the vehicle being a police car. According to the article, unnamed "police sources" stated that the American was believed to have committed suicide by drowning.

On the death of Major Strasser of the Third Reich, not a single word was printed.

That came as no surprise to Louis. Reporters in Vichy's sphere were well aware of who was pulling their puppet strings, and neither Vichy nor Berlin would be keen to have it noised abroad that a darling of the Fuehrer had been assassinated. Such a report might give too many people too many dangerous ideas.

His breakfast completed, Louis made a brief stop back at Les Studios to leave his newspaper with Yousef. Then he cut across the Avenue d'Amade and through the outlying row of trees to reach the welcoming sanctuary that was the Parc Lyautey on a sunny Sunday.

Tensions and concerns seemed to drift away from him as he strolled up the central avenue between the palm trees. It really was a beautiful day. He exchanged greetings with various acquaintances, touched his cap to all of the ladies he passed and smilingly bowed his head to greet the more attractive ones. He indulgently watched the frolicking children who were running all around, and meanwhile he thanked Heaven that none of the children were his.

Louis walked all of the way up the avenue until he was parallel with their truncated cathedral-in-progress. As usual, he thought of the description he had heard from Emil, the head croupier at Rick's: that the partly-built Sacré-Coeur resembled a lone bookend deprived of its books.

Between Louis and the would-be cathedral stood the ivy-draped stone arches which were all that remained of the Portuguese colonizers' prison. It occurred to him to wonder if one day Casablanca's current, French-built prison would endure this same fate. Would the march of time reduce their dreaded prison building to just another of the park's attractive decorative features? It was not improbable, he supposed; after all, the current police buildings were adjacent to the park.

Perhaps someday the city fathers would expand the Parc Lyautey. All that would be left of his workplace, perhaps, would be the dome of the Central Commissariat, blending harmoniously with the greenery and serving as a backdrop for courting couples and for little children chasing each other and squealing.

Those thoughts did not make him feel melancholy as he turned and retraced his steps along the palm-lined avenue. Quite the reverse. For now, he felt happy to dismiss from his thoughts the very existence of his place of employment, as thoroughly as though it had indeed become an architectural embellishment of the park.

Perhaps he should discard the notion of going in to work today.

Normally, when a thought like that occurred to him, he would yet again be considering the question of whom he most felt like telephoning, out of all those good-looking women who were facing trouble with visas or their various permits. Obedience to General Béthouart would close him off from that form of entertainment, but he could still find better things to do than spending such a gorgeous day in his office.

His thoughts turned again to Marianne from the Cinema Rialto. If her schedule was still the same as it used to be, she was off-work on Sundays. And if she should turn out to be at home when he 'phoned—he was certain he did still have her telephone number—then this really could become a perfect day.

He allowed himself to imagine strolling through the park at Marianne's side. Perhaps he would purchase an ice cream for her; a beautiful woman enjoying an ice cream cone was always an appealing sight. He might take her for a drive along the beach—surely Vichy wouldn't fire him for using a police car when he was out on a date?—and then perhaps an early dinner at La Reserve. But, no, he decided. La Reserve was far too near the spot where Rick Blaine had supposedly committed suicide. With the way gossip made the rounds in Casablanca, Marianne had probably already heard of the circumstances of that tragedy. She might feel such a choice of dinner locations was in poor taste on his part.

So, they would go somewhere else. Casablanca had no shortage of fine dining options.

By the time he reached the end of the park's avenue once again, he had his day all charmingly planned out. All he had to do now was return to his apartment and give Marianne a call—

"Ah, Captain Renault, how delightful it is to see you."

He turned sharply toward the voice that had hailed him.

 _It could be worse,_ he told himself. _At least it is not Consul-General Auer._

Instead, the owner of the voice was Signor Ferrari. The corpulent businessman sat on a bench at the corner of the avenue of palms, where he looked in imminent danger of melting away in the sunlight. In place of the fly swatter which was his usual accessory at the Blue Parrot, he held a rattan fan and was fanning himself with a vigor that seemed little short of desperation.

The thought struck Louis that Ferrari should have a little native boy fanning him, as though he were Cleopatra. Maybe one of Casablanca's many shoeshine boys could take on that task. Louis also thought that this might well be the first time he had seen Signor Ferrari out-of-doors in the daylight.

"Signor Ferrari," Louis greeted him, "are you certain you should be out at this time of the day? You know the sun can be dangerous for those who aren't used to it."

"It's good of you to be concerned," said Ferrari, with his usual predatory little smile. "Your doorman said I might find you in the park, so I determined to wait here for a time before seeking you out in your office. But I do confess that the sunlight was becoming a trifle wearing."

"Shall we find another bench in the shade?"

Ferrari heaved himself to his feet. "As ever, Captain, you are the soul of graciousness."

They proceeded slowly toward the trees at the edge of the park, Ferrari's fan flapping as fast as if it were driven by electricity. During their ponderous walk, Signor Ferrari commented, "So very shocking, wasn't it—the news about poor Rick Blaine?"

"News?" Louis queried. "Have you heard anything new?" For a dreadful moment he thought Ferrari might _actually_ have some news about Rick. Perhaps he knew all about their little arrangement with Dave King. Perhaps he knew that the Germans had discovered the arrangement, and that even now they had Rick in their clutches.

The businessman cast Louis one of his typically calculating glances. "Why, no, my Captain. I merely meant the rumor of Rick's suicide. I am sure that if anything new were to be learned of his fate, you would know of it long before me."

"Of course," Louis said automatically. He prayed that his thoughts weren't quite as readable on his face as he had feared for a moment they might be. Surely his poker face was practiced enough that it could withstand a little everyday prodding from Signor Umberto Ferrari.

By a stroke of good fortune, a tree-shaded bench proved to be available relatively near to hand. Louis had been thinking that if such a bench were not vacant, he would have to pull rank as prefect of police and requisition one.

Seeing how much space Ferrari took up on the bench, Louis decided he would remain standing. That option seemed preferable to the notion of the prefect of police precariously perching on the end of the bench and perhaps eventually falling off. To have something to do while he waited to learn what Ferrari wanted to talk about, he took out his cigarettes. He offered one to Ferrari, but that gentleman declined.

"Thank you, Captain, but I find that when I am overheated, I cannot endure smoking. It somehow seems to make the heat even worse." A pause followed while Louis lit his cigarette and Ferrari emphatically fanned himself. At last the sweating entrepreneur seemed cooled enough that his face could take on a melancholy expression, instead of merely looking too hot.

"I must say I was surprised to hear about poor Rick," Ferrari said, shaking his head. "I had never imagined him as the sort of man who might kill himself for love. But having seen Miss Lund, perhaps I should not find it so surprising. And in Casablanca, it should be only too easy to recall that all men are mortal—even the legendary Rick." With another mournful head-shake, Ferrari delivered a quote from Omar Khayyam: "One thing, at least, is certain: this life flies. One thing is certain and the rest is lies: The flower that once has blown, forever dies."

Louis was of the opinion that one good Omar Khayyam quote deserved another. He quoted back, "And if the wine you drink, the lips you press, End in the nothing all things end in, yes—Then fancy while thou art, Thou art but what thou shalt be: Nothing. Thou shalt not be less."

"Very good, Captain," remarked Ferrari, again giving his small smirk of a smile. "You are a scholar as well as a connoisseur of beauty."

Louis sighed and answered, "Apparently I also understand my fellow men too well for my own happiness. Many times I accused Rick of being a sentimentalist at heart—an accusation which he invariably laughed off. I am sorry to have been so tragically proved right."

With a shrewd gaze from his beady little eyes, Ferrari inquired, "Then you do believe it is true that Rick has killed himself?"

Hoping he looked unhappy enough for his words to be the truth, Louis said, "I'm afraid I believe it the most likely answer. Just as you did, I also saw Miss Lund. And I saw the look on Rick's face when she and Victor Laszlo walked away from him to board that airplane."

Signor Ferrari treated himself to another vigorous bout of fan-flapping. "As moving as this conversation is," he said, "I confess I did not venture into the noonday heat solely to discuss poor Rick's fate, or to exchange poetry quotations."

"I suspected as much," smiled Louis, "and I am waiting to be told why the mountain has come to Mohammed."

"The mountain has come," replied Ferrari, "to inquire as to when our kind and generous prefect of police will grant his permission to re-open Rick's Café. I should point out," he went on, when Louis initially said nothing, "that the circumstances under which you ordered the café closed have now passed. Rick's is under new ownership. I am confident that any objections you may have held to former operations there can be easily solved if we consider the problem together."

"Signor Ferrari," Louis answered, "I am happy to be able to tell you that this is your lucky day. The driving force behind the café's closing was not me, but the late Major Strasser. With the major no longer here to impose his will upon us, I see no reason why Rick's should not re-open tomorrow—that is, if the staff can be ready in time."

Once again Signor Ferrari maneuvered himself to his feet. "Captain Renault," he declared, "on behalf of the employees of Rick's, I thank you. Indeed, I may venture to say that I thank you on behalf of every nightlife-loving resident of Casablanca."

Louis bowed his head in acknowledgment. He then added, "I should point out that during Rick's ownership of the café, I enjoyed a significant run of good luck at the roulette."

"Of course, Captain. I gave our friend Rick my promise that the beloved traditions he established would continue under my ownership. Among those traditions, Captain Renault's run of good luck holds a place of honor." His shrewd eyes sparkling, the businessman went on, "Might I be so forward as to request that you put your permission for the re-opening into writing—in case any of the late Major Strasser's compatriots are inclined to mimic that gentleman's unreasonable attitude toward our establishment?"

"Certainly," Louis agreed. "I presume your car is nearby? If you will give me a lift to my office, I will write out that permission at once."

His office, of course, was only a laughably short walk away. But Louis found that he had lost all interest in strolling. He wanted to get that order written and into Ferrari's hands in the briefest amount of time possible. The sooner Rick's re-opened, the sooner he might start to feel that his life was on something resembling an even keel.

Ferrari gave a little grin. "As always, my Captain, it is the greatest pleasure doing business with you."

As Ferrari was finishing that statement, Louis sidestepped to get out of the way of a small Scottie dog and three children running full-tilt along the pathway. The third child, a boy, ran smack into Signor Ferrari and actually seemed to bounce off him. The boy would have fallen if Ferrari had not grabbed his collar. Grinning and shaking himself free, the kid ran on, not even bothering to say "excuse me." But at least, Louis reflected, he had not yelled any rude comments.

"Ah, the energy of youth," declaimed Ferrari, brushing off his suit jacket where the boy had run into him. "As usual, it is almost entirely wasted on the young. Wouldn't you like to have a bit of that energy, Captain? Although," he continued with another smug glance toward Louis, "I have no reason to assume that you suffer any lack of energy."

Louis took a last puff from his cigarette and commented, "I simply spend my remaining youthful energy in pursuits that I find more enjoyable than chasing a dog through the park."

With surprising abruptness, Ferrari's expression sobered again. After another brief interlude of fanning himself, he said, "Before we leave, there is one other matter I should mention to you. I come bearing an invitation. Tonight the staff of Rick's are holding … well, I suppose it would be in poor taste, and perhaps bad luck, as well, to call it a wake, since we do not know for certain that poor Rick is dead. So, then, we are holding … a vigil, in Rick's honor. It will be at Rick's Café, of course, commencing at around nine o'clock. I believe everyone who has ever worked for Rick in Casablanca will be there. Several of them specifically requested that I invite you to join us."

Louis stared, in surprise and also in a significant amount of alarm. He had the strong suspicion that it might not be good for his health for him to surround himself with grief-stricken employees of Rick's—not to mention people whose homes had all been searched a couple of nights ago on Louis' orders.

Taking a moment to recover, he stubbed out the remnant of his cigarette on the metal framework of the bench Ferrari had vacated. Just as he did every time he was smoking outside, he put away the remains in his cigarette case until such time as he should be near a rubbish bin. Confused and shaken though he was, he was determined he would never be confused or shaken enough to participate in the filthy habit of littering the world with cigarette-ends.

"I am grateful for the invitation," Louis said as he returned his cigarette case to its pocket. "But I'm not certain I should accept. It strikes me that some members of Rick's staff may hold me at least partly responsible for his death."

Ferrari began to tap his fan against his other hand, in a repetitive gesture that Louis would find annoying if he allowed himself to pay attention to it. "I must admit," the Italian replied, "I have heard a few of them express such an opinion. But others have rather vehemently argued them down. Sam himself is among your most vocal defenders. He has told the others in no uncertain terms that no one is responsible for what happened to Rick, except for Rick himself. And Sam is one of those who asked that I invite you to this vigil. Since you have Sam's vote of confidence, none of the others are likely to give you much difficulty. In point of fact, I believe most of the employees feel that fate alone is responsible for Rick's tragedy. Although," he added, "some of them may be of the opinion that fate received a helping hand in the form of Miss Lund."

What little conversation they partook of during their brief ride to the Central Commissariat revolved around the fact that Ferrari's car was a Renault. The black-marketeer noticed Louis casting an amused glance at the brand name as they approached the car. When they had settled into the back seat—on which Ferrari took up approximately three-quarters of the space—and his driver had smoothly plunged them into traffic, Ferrari remarked, "As you see, I honor our noble prefect of police with my choice of automobile."

"Mm-hm," Louis replied, with the skepticism that statement deserved. "On behalf of my eighth cousins sixteen times removed, the automobile magnates, I thank you."

In scarcely any time at all, he and Ferrari were making their way across the lobby of the Central Commissariat. Everyone looked more or less surprised to see the prefect arriving at work on a Sunday, although Louis reflected that this surprise must be fairly tame compared to some of the recent goings-on about the place. In addition to the several variations on "Good day, Captain," that greeted him, three of the policemen he encountered on his way in to his office mentioned that neither Hauptmann Heinze nor anyone else had been looking for him yet today.

 _So far, so good,_ Louis thought. _I wonder how long that will last._

In deference to Ferrari's presence, they took the elevator up the one level to Louis' office. Once there, Ferrari pretended to enjoy the view out the window while Louis wrote and signed his café- reopening order. He wrote the order, naturally, on police department stationary, and he time-and-date stamped it for good measure.

"There you are, Signor," Louis said, walking over to the window and handing Ferrari the order. "This should be formal and official enough to satisfy even our German colleagues."

"I am deeply grateful to you, Captain. I hope we can expect to see you at Rick's tonight?"

"Yes," he answered, though a heavy feeling of gloom crept into him as he said it. "I will be there."

Louis remained in his office for the rest of the afternoon. His conversation with Ferrari—bringing to the forefront of his mind the warning of General Béthouart, the suspicions of Theodor Auer, his brand-spanking-new commitment to the Resistance, and the absence of Rick Blaine—had killed in him all desire to spend the day with Marianne Janvier or any other charming companion.

Instead, he buried himself in paperwork, taking an occasional pause to contemplate which of the many sensitive documents that regularly passed over his desk might be most useful for him to smuggle out to the Resistance.

The ironic thought occurred to him that perhaps his uncharacteristically abstemious behavior had earned him some reward. It certainly seemed as though some saint or other must be on his side today. The entire afternoon passed, and no one at all descended on him to demand answers about Richard Blaine and Major Heinrich Strasser.

 _Now,_ he thought, _if only this good luck holds through the night. If only I can get through this "vigil" for Rick without any of his employees trying to lynch me._

He was still at his desk at seven o'clock, when darkness had long ago settled in outside and Lieutenant Casselle stopped in yet again to check on whether he'd departed. It was the third time in the past three-quarters of an hour that Casselle had dropped by to worriedly suggest that his boss should consider going home.

This third time, the lieutenant went further and inquired, "My Captain … is there anything Louise and I can do for you? We could bring some dinner to your apartment … or you would be welcome to come to dinner at our house. We both would be very happy for you to join us …"

"No, no, Vincent, thank you," Louis answered, smiling at his aide and accepting defeat. There was no escaping the fact that he would have to go home now. Clearly Casselle would not leave work today until he did, and Louis did not want to be responsible for unreasonable delays to the Casselle family's dinner.

"It's all right," Louis went on, "I am just leaving now. And I am perfectly capable of cooking dinner for myself."

"Yes, sir," Casselle persisted, "but you don't have to. I know this has been a difficult few days for you. If there is anything we can do to help …"

Louis got up from his desk and walked over to briefly clasp Casselle's arm. "I know it," he said. "And I do thank you. But you do not need to worry. I promise you, I will be all right."

Since his usual car was still evidence in a murder investigation, and was probably also still undergoing repairs, he took another of the police department's fleet of cars and drove home. Back at his apartment, he divested himself of cap, jacket and tie, and cooked a good, old-fashioned comfort meal of buckwheat crepes filled with ham, onions and cheese. It was exactly the sort of dinner he used to cook while he was growing up, when he, Etienne and their father returned home from one of Papa's wet, cold, interminable expeditions to study the megalithic standing stones.

Louis, for one, had decidedly needed comfort food after those outings. And if he had relied on their father to provide the family's meals, their dinners would never have been anything more comforting than stale baguette and sausage. Yves Renault was invariably too enthralled by whatever new monograph he planned to write on how the fairy folk had constructed Brittany's megalithic monuments to bother with so prosaic a concern as cooking dinner for his sons.

 _And tonight,_ Louis told himself, _I need comfort food just as badly as ever I did after a day of searching for fairies under dolmens._

As nine o'clock drew near, he shaved again, unwilling to appear at anything less than his best to the employees of Rick's café. Then he changed into his dress uniform.

Just this past Tuesday night, he had worn that same uniform the first time he accompanied Major Strasser to Rick's Café Américain. He was far more sincere in wanting to wear that uniform to honor Rick, than he had been in honoring Strasser. Fastening into place his service medals and the Legion of Honor, he thought of the differing motivations behind his wearing those medals on Tuesday night, and tonight.

On Tuesday, he had worn them to remind Strasser—and himself—that he once had fought, with honor, on the opposite side from where he found himself now. He had worn them, perhaps, to assure himself that he still _did_ have some honor; that he was something more than just the Nazis' lapdog.

 _And tonight?_ he thought.

 _Tonight I am wearing my medals in hopes of convincing a band of anti-Nazi nightclub employees that I'm on their side, and that they don't need to kill me in revenge for the death of their beloved boss._

It was a few minutes after nine when he drove the familiar route between his apartment and Rick's Café: up Rue Blaise Pascal across Avenue Mers Sultan and past the meeting point of Boulevard de Paris and Boulevard de Marseilles, a brief jog up Avenue Galieni to the Place Guynemer, and then the last short way up Rue d'Aviateur Roget.

Just as it had on Thursday night when he'd arrived to—as he'd thought—arrest Victor Laszlo, the street felt lonely and desolate without the neon gleam of the sign for Rick's Café Américain. Across the street from Rick's, the neon of the Cinema Rialto still glowed, but Louis knew it would not do so for long. It would only be lit until the fast-approaching end of the cinema's last show of the night.

He drove around through the arch to the courtyard in back and parked outside the café's back door. On emerging from the car he paused to straighten his uniform jacket and to make a minimal adjustment to the angle of his cap. Then, ordering himself not to wax maudlin at the thought that Rick wasn't here to open the door for him, he strode over and rapped sharply on the door.

It was Carl who let him in. The rotund Austrian book-keeper and waiter greeted the prefect of police effusively—and, Louis noted, the poor man looked just short of bursting into tears.

"Come in, Captain Renault, come in. It is so good to have you join us. You are the last one to arrive."

"Thank you, Carl," Louis answered quietly. He had the awkward feeling that he ought to clasp Carl's hand or make some other gesture of attempted comfort. Before he could make up his mind about that, Carl gave a miserable little smile and turned to lead him toward the other participants in this wake that should not be called a wake.

Louis had known, of course, that a small army of employees staffed Rick's Café. Tonight it became suddenly clear that Rick's army was not, in fact, all that small.

Unsurprisingly, he had never before seen all of Rick's employees clustered together in one place, without the café's many customers to dilute the impact of their presence. He thought now in some surprise that there had to be thirty of them, at the least.

 _I should have known that, of course,_ he told himself. _After all, I signed most of their work permits._

Once again he hoped that none of this assembled multitude held any particularly virulent grudge against him.

The employees had moved many tables together, to form one massive makeshift table. They had set up this base of operations near the bar. From the number of bottles and glasses scattered about on their tables, many of Rick's staff had been settled into this vigil for a significant while already. Louis supposed it was likely that Ferrari had told him a later arrival time than had been given to the rest of them; both to give the others time for mutual commiseration without the potential damper of the police prefect's presence, and to insulate them with alcohol before Renault was added to their mix.

Most of the lights around the spacious dining room were unlit or were significantly dimmed. Only the area near the bar was fully lit, making it an oasis of brightness amid the café's atmospheric shadows.

At the table that formed one end of the ersatz banquet table sat Signor Ferrari and Sam Wilson. Two chairs at that table were empty, and Carl led Louis to join the café-owner and the piano player at what was more-or-less the head of the banquet table.

Sam stood up as they approached. He reached out to shake hands across the table with Louis.

"Thank you for coming, Captain," Sam said somberly, meeting Louis' gaze. "We're glad to have you with us."

"Thank you, Mr. Wilson," Louis answered. He appreciated the firm hand-clasp from Sam, that seemed to speak of their shared secret. "I am grateful to you for inviting me."

"Sit down, Captain, sit down," urged Signor Ferrari, who had not troubled himself to stand up. "What will you have to start with?"

As he took his seat, with Ferrari at his right side and Carl at his left, Louis noted that one of the bottles on the table in front of him was bourbon. If he remembered rightly, this particular bourbon was Rick's favorite brand. That seemed fitting. He said, "I will start with bourbon—in honor of Rick."

It was Sam himself who poured for him. Sam then remained standing. He did not need to tap on his glass or do anything else to gain attention. All of the assembled employees had been watching Louis' arrival, anyway. The café was already so quiet, one would probably have heard the proverbial drop of a pin.

"You all got your glasses full?" Sam asked. "If they aren't full, fill them up."

A brief upsurge of muted noise followed as Rick's employees obeyed Sam's order. When the noise died down, Sam went on.

"We've had a lot of toasts already tonight," he said. "I'm sure we'll have plenty more. But now Captain Renault's here, I want there to be one toast that's all of us together. Everyone get on your feet—assuming you can still stand."

Amid a few quiet chuckles and whispers, the crowd arose, Louis standing with the rest of them. Even Signor Ferrari got to his feet this time.

"There's too much I want to say," continued Sam, his voice going heavy with emotion, "so I'll just keep this short." He raised his champagne glass and toasted, "To Rick."

Everyone's glasses were raised. Everyone spoke in a variegated chorus. "To the boss." "To Herr Rick." "To Mr. Rick." "To Rick."

Louis Renault murmured, "Here's to you, Ricky," and drained his bourbon in one shot.

A jumble of noise followed as people worked on sitting back down or on topping up their glasses. Sascha and his colleague Tony, bartenders to the depths of their souls, set about ensuring that their co-workers had what they wanted to drink, and fetching drinks for those who didn't. Louis wondered if Ferrari was allowing everyone to drink for free, to buy the good will of his new employees, or if the price of tonight's drinks would eventually be subtracted from their paychecks.

"What can I get for you now, Captain?" Sascha inquired of Louis.

Thinking it would indeed be pleasant to wash away the taste of the bourbon, he said, "A champagne cocktail, please. Thank you, Sascha." Louis smiled as he noticed who was sitting at Sascha's side: a wan and subdued-looking Yvonne Lebeau. Once again she was wearing a day dress, this time a gray one that looked as modest as a nun's habit compared to her usual evening wear. Yvonne managed a faint smile at Louis in reply to his smile.

While the replenishing of drinks continued, Louis glanced around at the familiar yet also unfamiliar-looking staff members of Rick's. Just as it had with Sam, the day before, it seemed strange to Louis to see most of them in ordinary street clothes, rather than in the evening wear or stylized native garb that formed their uniforms when the café was open.

Most had seemingly segregated themselves, each category of employees clustering together with the others of their own group. Down at the far end of the makeshift banquet table, one table was populated by the cadre of waiters. There was Paul the Maitre d', whose somber, weary face reminded Louis of the expression of a basset hound; scrawny little Emil Weiss, whose moustache seemed the most solid thing about him; the contrasting form of ever-genteel Gino, with his plump face and his infinitesimal moustache; quiet and gentlemanly Norman, who sometimes seemed to struggle not to show his amusement at the foibles of the customers; and finally tall, slender Jacques, the youngest of the lot, whose smile could charm the birds out of their trees and made him a favorite with the ladies.

Sascha, Tony, Yvonne, and Sascha's uncle Gregory, the gambling room's cashier, had one of the tables just down from the head table. Yvonne was seated to the right of Sam. Across from them, to Louis' left, was the table of doormen, led by quiet, unflappable Abdul, the guardian of the café's gambling room. Abdul's companions at that table were Hamza, keeper of the back door, Nabil, who filled in at the various doors when his colleagues went on their breaks, and dark-eyed, bearded young Issam, whose gracious bowing regularly welcomed all customers who strolled through the front door of Rick's Café.

Louis noticed as Sam reached across the table to pour a drink for Issam. The pianist and the doorman shared a quiet toast. Louis remembered Rick mentioning once that Sam had taken his Moroccan almost-namesake under his wing. Apparently young Issam's dream was to become a piano player, and Sam was giving him lessons.

To the left of the doormen sat all six of the coffee waiters. Louis realized he did not know any of them by name. The six of them tended to blend in his mind into one composite being. Since they all were Moroccan citizens, they had needed no special work permits, and thus their files had not passed across Louis' desk. More to the point, he supposed, he never noticed them much for the simple reason that he almost never drank coffee at the Café Américain.

Some of the Moroccan employees, as Louis guessed should be no surprise, were clearly far more observant Muslims than others of their fellows. A number of coffees and fruit juices were scattered around the tables in front of various Moroccans. But others, including Abdul and Issam, were working just as hard to deplete the café's alcohol supplies as were their European colleagues.

Another of the Moroccans, who was pouring himself a sizable glass of brandy, was the one native member of the Rick's Café band. He was the band's drummer, Louis knew, but what the man's name might be, he didn't begin to remember. All five of the band members were there at the vigil, seated at a table across from the coffee waiters. Louis' general indifference to music was likely the reason why he recalled the name of only one of those five musicians. That one, the accordion player, Louis found memorable for two reasons. First, he was married to Corinna, the good-looking singer and guitarist from Brazil. The other factor helping Louis remember the accordion player's name was that it was a close match for Louis' own. The name of Corinna's husband was Luis Rinaldi.

Corinna herself was currently sitting beside her husband, looking almost unrecognizable. Her hair was pinned up and she wore a modest dark dress bearing no resemblance to her stage costume which combined the looks of a belly dancer's outfit and a sarong.

At a table to the right of the band sat the croupiers and dealers who ensured the smooth operation of Rick's gambling room. Elegant and earnest Emil Blauschild, the head croupier, was there along with his cohort of assistants Maurice, Alexandre and Leon. Emil, in particular, was obviously not dealing well with Rick's presumed death. He had a nakedly emotional look about him as he knocked back one drink and immediately reached for a nearby bottle to pour himself another. From his raw expression, Louis thought it was touch and go whether or not Emil would soon break down in sobs.

The final table, across from Emil and his team, was occupied by the Russian family who ran the Rick's Café kitchen: Morris and Annie Cohen and their daughter Rosa. Louis had signed the permits enabling the family to work in Casablanca solely on Rick's request, rather than due to any charms the Cohen women possessed. They were attractive enough, in their roly-poly way, but Annie and Rosa had plenty of competition in town whose looks were far more to his liking. As far as Louis was concerned, the Cohen ladies' main appeal lay in the quality of their cooking—and in the fact that Rick had asked him to help them.

Unless he was forgetting someone, only two of Rick's employees were not at this vigil: the two young Moroccans who did the dish-washing. They were younger brothers of one of the doormen—Hamza, if he was remembering correctly. Louis supposed that while Hamza's parents were willing to let their teenaged sons work in the café kitchen—the pay was good, and the boys were under the Cohen family's watchful supervision—permitting them to spend an evening in the company of their hard-drinking European co-workers was something else entirely.

Conversations quieted again once the drinks had been refilled. Louis sipped appreciatively at the champagne cocktail Sascha had delivered to him. Down at the croupiers' table, he saw Emil get to his feet, and Louis felt fairly certain that Emil was looking at him. He struggled not to let himself tense up as he wondered whether Emil was the one who would transform this relatively civil gathering into a lynch mob.

"Captain Renault," Emil began. He seemed to be working intently to keep his voice steady. "I am hoping that you will be willing to tell us of the last time you saw Mr. Rick. We have all heard stories and rumors of what happened to him that night, and Sam has recounted to us what you told him of that last encounter."

Louis took good care not to glance at Sam on that comment. He thought there was too much risk that the expression of one or both of them would reveal there was more to the story than Sam had told his colleagues.

"But," Emil went on, "since it seems that you are the last of all of us who saw Mr. Rick—the last one we know of who saw him alive—I know we will all be grateful to hear whatever you can tell us of that night. All of us will … we will treasure any recollection of yours that can make us feel closer to him."

Emil's voice faltered on that final sentence. His posture weaved slightly as he stood there holding fast to the edge of the table. His fellow croupier Alexandre reached up and helped Emil to sit back down.

 _Wonderful,_ Louis thought.

It was not as if he did not have sufficient practice at telling this story. After writing it up in his official report and telling various portions of it to Magistrate Patenaude, Hauptmann Heinze and His Honor the Mayor of Casablanca, he thought he ought to be just about capable of reciting it in his sleep. But this current gathering was a different sort of audience. Telling the tale in such a way as to convince Rick's grief-stricken employees that their boss was probably dead—but that they should not swear bloody vengeance against Captain Renault on account of that—was liable to prove the most intricate of balancing acts.

Praying for lucidity of brain and tongue, Louis said, "I'm afraid few of my recollections are likely to provide much comfort. But I will tell you what I remember, if all of you wish me to."

The chorus of replies that answered him seemed all to be basically positive. Louis risked a glance toward Sam. The piano player answered his look with a small, encouraging smile. For further encouragement, Louis took another swallow of his champagne cocktail.

His thoughts were chasing each other, and tying knots in their own tails, as he sought to decide which details of the story would make his audience better disposed toward him, and which he should avoid mentioning for the sake of defending his own life.

He kept his gaze fixed on his drink as he began the tale. He thought that sort of body language matched with their cover story well enough. It seemed appropriate for a man who was simply saddened over the probable death of a friend. It did not _have_ to prove that he was a spinner of fairy tales, desperately hoping his audience would not find any gaping holes in his story.

"On Thursday afternoon, Rick visited me at my office. He told me that he had the letters of transit, and that he planned on using them himself. He said he and Miss Lund were going to America together."

One of the story's most dangerous portions lay just ahead. Louis braced himself against the café-workers' potentially outraged reactions.

"Rick asked me to set Mr. Laszlo free. He said he was offering me a deal, as a sort of goodbye present from him. He would arrange it so that I could re-arrest Laszlo in the act of purchasing the letters of transit. I would thus have a charge against Laszlo as accessory to the murder of the two couriers."

Angry murmurs sounded in reply. It was Carl who burst out, in a scandalized tone, "And you actually believed Herr Rick would do a thing like that?"

"Why not?" Louis countered, challengingly meeting Carl's gaze. "Rick said it was his insurance policy, so he and Miss Lund could be certain of never running into Mr. Laszlo in the United States. Yes, I believed him. I believed his love for Miss Lund had triumphed over any sympathy Rick might feel for Victor Laszlo's cause."

He took another drink and looked down again at his glass. "In the event, of course, I proved entirely wrong. Rick had sold me a bill of goods. That night, when I attempted to arrest Laszlo here, Rick pulled a gun on me and ordered me to drive them to the airport. Once there, he directed that I write the names of Mr. Laszlo and Miss Lund on the letters of transit myself."

He did look at his audience now. All thirty-plus of them were watching him, silent and spellbound. He prayed the spell would last long enough to prevent them from asking awkward questions—particularly about the arrival of Major Strasser.

"That command from Rick took Miss Lund by surprise. It seems she had believed that only Laszlo would be leaving, and that she and Rick would remain behind, together. She begged Rick not to send her away from him. And Rick told her that Laszlo needed her; that she gave him the strength he needed to keep on fighting for his cause. Rick told her that if she did not leave with Laszlo, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

"Laszlo and Miss Lund boarded that 'plane together. The 'plane was still on the runway when Major Strasser drove up. He began to telephone the radio tower to halt the airplane's departure."

Louis took another swig of his champagne cocktail, now almost drained to its dregs. "Rick informed the major that he would shoot him if he did not cease that call. Major Strasser did not stop. As he continued his telephone call, he attempted to draw on Rick. Before Strasser could fire, Rick shot him, just as he had promised. I believe the major was dead before his body hit the ground."

The whispered comments that followed this sequence of his tale stopped short of being outright cheers, but not by much. Not a soul among Rick's employees was going to mourn the passing of Major Heinrich Strasser.

 _Full speed ahead, now,_ Louis thought, _before they have time to notice anything fishy._

"Apparently Strasser had ordered that a squad of police accompany him to the airport. As the patrol car was pulling up, Rick reminded me that he still had seven rounds left. He did not want to shoot me, he said, but he would if I forced him to."

Louis shrugged and smiled. "I had no desire to follow Major Strasser in death. When my men arrived, I ordered them to take charge of the major's body and, when they reached town, to commence a standard round-up of suspects."

There were a few grim chuckles and whispers in response to that. Louis wondered just how many of his current hearers had been caught up in one or more of those standard round-ups.

"Rick then commanded me to drive him into town, reminding me again of the presence of the pistol. As I drove, I tried to engage him in conversation. But he would say little, apart from warning me not to try anything funny like driving straight to police headquarters. When we reached the Boulevard Marechal Foch, Rick directed me into a side-street behind the Church of Saint John the Baptist. I had just brought the car to halt, when Rick suddenly said, 'I'm sorry about this, Louis.' I started to turn toward him, to ask him what he was talking about. The next I knew, I was flat on my back on the sidewalk, with an aching head. Rick and the car were gone."

He spread his hands apart in another shrugging sort of gesture. "I am sure all of you know the rest of the story as well as do I. That next afternoon the car was found abandoned at Sidi Abderrahmane Beach. Rick's suitcases were still in the trunk of the car. But of Rick, there was no sign."

For a strange moment in which time somehow seemed arrested, no one said a thing. Then Emil Blauschild carefully stood, once again gripping the edge of the table to steady himself. "I appreciate your telling us, Captain," the croupier said, his voice also painfully held to steadiness. "Thank you."

Louis nodded to him and then finally finished the last of the champagne cocktail. He looked with regret into his empty glass.

Issam the doorman asked the question that large segments of the populations of Casablanca, Vichy and Berlin also wanted to have answered. "And do you believe, Captain, that Mr. Rick killed himself, as everyone is saying?"

 _Meet his eyes,_ Louis ordered himself. _If you don't meet his eyes, he and every other person here will figure out that you're lying._

"I believe it is very likely that he did. After seeing the look on his face as he watched that 'plane fly away … yes. I believe he could easily have killed himself that night."

Corinna the guitarist spoke up suddenly. "He either killed himself, or he wants everyone to believe that he did. Either way, we should act just the same. Whether Rick is dead or not, we should act as though we are convinced that he is. The more we seem to believe it, the more the Germans are going to believe it, too. If Rick _is_ alive, the last thing we should do is to keep that possibility alive in people's minds. If we are his friends, then we should never again say there is a chance he may be alive."

"Well said, my dear lady," declared Signor Ferrari, getting to his feet. "Decidedly well said. And now, my friends, I am certain that most of you could use another drink. Remember, I will not be making a habit of inviting you to drink on my tab. Tonight may be your one chance, so help yourselves while you can."

"May I bring you another of the same, Captain?" inquired Tony the bartender, indicating Louis' glass.

"Yes," Louis said, feeling rather dazed. "Thank you, Tony."

 _Can that really be all there is to it?_ he asked himself. _Have I really gotten through this minefield that easily?_

It seemed to him that he had just dodged several bullets. Unless someone was biding his or her time, waiting to strike when Louis would least expect it, then he had maneuvered through this recital of his story unscathed.

No one seemed particularly out for his blood because he'd attempted evil against the great Victor Laszlo. No one had asked that time bomb of a question: who had tipped off Major Strasser about the goings-on at the airport? And—thus far, at least—none of the café staff had suggested that Louis knew more than he was telling about the disappearance of Richard Blaine.

With his solo performance now out of the way, he thought the rest of the night might turn out to be fairly pleasant for him.

The conversations that soon came to life all centered around loving reminiscences of Rick. It was just the sort of talk in which people would indulge at an authentic wake, when they had no reason to suspect that the friend they mourned was alive.

Much of the talk focused on employees' recollections of where and how Rick had hired them. Louis heard multiple renditions of the same basic story. Rick started up conversation with the speaker as he or she stood in line outside the U.S. Consulate. Rick asked them about their backgrounds, their jobs, their skills; he ascertained what their prospects were for gaining a visa to the country of their choice—and those prospects were, inevitably, grim. And then the next thing they knew, Rick was offering them a job.

A variation on that story came in the cases in which the speakers' work or residence permits had expired, and they risked confinement in the Ain Chok internment camp—or in one of the many other less pleasant camps scattered throughout Morocco's desert. Those were the cases in which Rick's intervention had involved a visit to Captain Louis Renault, with Rick spinning a line of talk about how this, that or the other desperate refugee was the very person he needed to wait tables for him, be his gambling room's cashier, or play the trumpet in the café's band.

The night wandered on in a haze of drinking and reminiscence. The curfew hour of eleven o'clock was greeted without concern. With the prefect of police as a member of their party, the risks of taking part in this particular after-hours gathering were minimal.

Sam had kept quiet throughout most of his co-workers' talking. He seemed content to let the tide of it wash over him, just the same as Louis was doing. But finally, mellowed perhaps by the champagne he was drinking, he chuckled and leaned across the table toward Louis.

"You know, Captain," he said, with a grin, "what I keep on remembering for some reason is that day when we were first getting this place set up. The carpenters had just finished, and there was sawdust all over the place, and you dropped in to collect some fee or other from Rick. You asked, 'Is there anything I can do to help?' and Rick said, "Yeah. You can sweep up,' and he thrust a broom at you."

Seemingly marveling at the recollection, the piano player shook his head. "I thought you'd get your shorts in a twist about it and go sashaying out of here, but you didn't. Damned if you didn't just take the broom and start sweeping."

Louis likewise smiled at that memory. "Indeed," he remarked, sipping his latest champagne cocktail. "I have sometimes wondered if that was the real reason why Rick decided he would let me win at roulette. He found there was a warm place in his heart for a police prefect who did not turn up his nose at sweeping up sawdust in a nightclub."

Sascha, his accent even thicker than usual from the mixture of alcohol and emotion, joined in the conversation. "My uncle took a photograph on that day, remember?" he said, patting his uncle Gregory on the back. "He got that photo out and framed it, after—after what happened to the boss. We have it up on the bar now."

" _Da_ ," nodded Gregory. "Mr. Rick, he would never permit a photo like that to be put up before. He thought it was … too sentimental. And maybe too much like patting ourselves upon the back. But now—" he shrugged, "now we have it. If we do not have him, we have at least our memories of him. And we do not give a damn if we are sentimental."

"Amen to that," said Louis, raising his glass to the pudgy little Russian. "I would like to see that photograph."

"I will get it for you, Captain," Sascha told him. It took the young bartender a bit of effort to stand up; then he made his only slightly weaving way over to the bar.

Louis spent a while gazing at the framed snapshot when Sascha brought it back to him. He had just about forgotten that the photo had been taken. But now as he looked at it, he remembered the moment with aching clarity.

All of their happy faces grinned out of the photo at him. There stood Rick and Sascha behind the bar, Rick with one arm around Sascha's shoulders. In front of the bar, to Rick and Sascha's right, stood Sam, Abdul and Carl; to their left stood Emil Blauschild and Louis Renault, the prefect of police. Louis was posing jauntily with the broom. He had taken off his uniform cap and hung it atop the broom-handle. Louis wasn't sure any more why he had felt like doing that; he just knew it had seemed an appropriate action at the time.

"Yes," Louis said. He realized that, ridiculously, he felt a lump of emotion in his throat. "Rick would indeed tear a strip off us for being so sentimental as to keep this thing around. But I think he would secretly enjoy it. It is only that he would enjoy giving us hell over it, too."

Large numbers of people were suddenly clustered around Louis, looking at the photograph over his shoulders, although he had not noticed any of them gathering there. Comments of affection and amusement wafted about him. Someone was saying they should find that broom and give it to the captain as a remembrance, when it struck Louis that an incongruous, foreign sound was making its way through all the talk.

"Hush," he said. "Listen. Isn't that the telephone?"

Most of the others were clearly in as much of an alcoholic haze as he was, or a great deal more so. There followed significant blinking and obvious efforts at concentrating, before the crowd quieted enough to confirm that the telephone was ringing. Its insistent squall sounded at them across the dining room from over at the maitre d's desk.

Paul, the maitre d' in question, cautiously maneuvered himself to his feet. With an injured expression he muttered, "Isn't it a bit late to be calling in a reservation?" He began to make his unhurried, dignified way toward his desk—although in this instance his deliberate pace likely resulted at least in part from the volume of alcohol he'd consumed.

Norman the waiter turned to his fellow waiter, little Emil, with the teasing comment, "It is probably your wife, calling to check on when you are coming home."

Little Emil managed no comeback beyond punching his colleague in the arm. Sascha, however, suggested in fairly drunken hilarity, "No, it is probably some beauteous refugee with visa problems, calling in search of our friend the captain."

Louis raised his eyebrows at that. He stated, "The beauteous refugee will need to wait 'till tomorrow. I do not intend to budge from this spot until daylight."

Further humorous suggestions on the identity of the caller would doubtless have followed, except that Paul the maitre d' was suddenly back amongst them. He had to have walked a great deal faster on his way back to the group than he'd walked on the trip to the telephone. A troubled-looking frown on his face, Paul bowed to Signor Ferrari and said, "Signor? The telephone is for you."

Ferrari's eyebrows journeyed upward in surprise. "Oh?" he queried. "Thank you." In his turn, the new owner of Rick's rose to his feet and proceeded slowly across the dining room.

A wave of worry seemed to spread through the assembled people, probably set off by the look on Paul's face. Louis felt it himself, a vague sense of trouble creeping up within him, and he saw it on the faces of those around him. Along with many others, he turned in his seat to watch as Ferrari reached the telephone.

He could not tell what Ferrari's expression might be as he talked, standing far away in the café's dim shadows. But he thought he saw tension in the businessman's stance, although likely that was only the tension Louis brought to the scene himself.

Behind him he heard Yvonne's voice, taut with fear. Yvonne said, "Perhaps it is news about Rick."

 _Perhaps it is,_ thought Louis. He stood up, his body feeling weirdly distant from his thoughts.

It would, of course, be desperately impolite for him to eavesdrop on Ferrari's conversation. At this moment he did not give any kind of a damn about that. He started to walk toward the maitre d's station. He knew from the sounds he heard that others were following him.

 _The Germans have caught him,_ came his pitiless thoughts. _Maybe they are torturing him now. Maybe he's already dead._

As he drew near, he realized he would not be able to eavesdrop on the conversation, anyway. Ferrari was speaking in Arabic. His rapid-fire speech was too speedy by far for Louis' minimal command of that language. Only Ferrari's closing phrases of the telephone call did Louis think he understood. He thought they translated to, "Yes, yes, I understand. Yes. Thank you."

Signor Ferrari hung up the phone, an odd expression on his face. He seemed tense and grim, yet also deep in contemplation. He did not snap at the various people who had drifted over to him, or shoo them away. He only said, "Come back to the others. This is something everyone should hear."

Louis' insides jolted painfully. He thought, _It_ is _about Rick. It is._ He knew that everyone around him must be thinking the same thing.

Neither Sascha nor Yvonne had wandered over to the telephone. Both of them stood watching, clasping each other's hands, as Ferrari returned. Louis thought it looked as though, if Sascha were not holding Yvonne's hand, she might easily collapse. The looks on the faces of Russian bartender and heartsick Frenchwoman were identical: wide-eyed and ill with horror.

"Was that call about the boss?" Sascha forced out hoarsely. "Is he—have they found him?"

"No," was Ferrari's distant reply. "No, it was not about Rick."

Louis felt relief swamping him. The same must have happened to everyone else, judging by the general sighs and whispered exclamations.

Signor Ferrari asked, "Is there a radio here? One on which we can pick up the BBC?"

Louis stared at him blankly, his mind feeling as blank as his face. He guessed all the others were feeling the same sensation he was currently feeling: the sense of running several steps to catch up.

The first to answer was Sam. He said, "The boss has one. I mean—there's a radio in Rick's room. It ought to be already set to the BBC."

Ferrari consulted his watch. "And it is still a few minutes before twelve. We will be able to catch the midnight news." The new owner of the café queried, "Do you think Rick would object to all of us going to his room and listening? Unless, of course," Ferrari added, glancing archly at Louis, "the captain would arrest us for engaging in such a treasonable activity."

Louis wondered, _What in the devil's name is going on?_ He said, "Since I would also need to arrest myself, I believe I can turn a blind eye to everyone's listening to a broadcast from the enemy."

Sam frowningly answered his new employer, "No, I don't think Mr. Richard would object, if we've got a good reason for doing it. What _is_ our reason for doing it?"

Ferrari said, "The call was from one of my men, saying he thought I would want to listen to the news. He told me that earlier tonight, the BBC reported breaking news of an attack on some American naval base. Supposedly a Japanese attack. At the time of that report, the attack was apparently still going on."

For another moment they were silent in communal surprise. Then Sam Wilson said, an unfamiliar harsh note in his voice, "All right. Let's go upstairs."

The majority of that group was not sober enough to manage an actual stampede up the stairs. At the most, Louis thought, their upward progress counted as a sort of urgent drifting.

Sam must have been drinking a good deal less than most of his colleagues. Either that, or his identity as the sole American among them gave him enough concern at Ferrari's news to cut through the alcohol and let him surge upstairs far faster than the rest of them. Louis made an effort to keep up with the piano player. All the same, he was a far distant second in the race, by the time Sam reached the door to Rick's apartment.

Onward Sam strode, through the living room that for Louis had been the scene of many a late-night conversation and drinking session. Louis followed Sam into the apartment's other room, a room that Louis had never visited before.

He didn't know what he'd expected of Rick's bedroom, but this wasn't it. In contrast with the sumptuous living room, the furnishings in here were scarcely more than utilitarian. The bed was a decent enough size, Louis supposed, and the linens seemed of good quality, but that was about all the room had going for it. It entirely lacked the living room's dense décor of exotic lamps, abstract modern paintings and bronze statuettes of attractive nudes that lent interest to various end-tables.

This barren space, it seemed, was the room of someone who intended to spend little time within these walls except when he was asleep.

Louis found it difficult to believe that anyone could take so little interest in his own bedroom. A sudden supposition leapt to his mind that Rick had really spent as little time as could manage to inside this room.

Rick had lived as much of his life as he could downstairs in the café—with his customers and his employees all around him—and in his living room, with Louis, or with Sam, or with whoever else might have joined him there in conversation.

Perhaps Rick had spent so little time in his bedroom because in this room he found himself confronting how much he hated to be alone.

Impatiently Louis told himself, _These are very fascinating theories. You will have to be certain to share them with Rick sometime. I'm sure he will be thrilled to hear them._

 _Just now, the most striking fact about Rick's bedroom is that it is not designed to accommodate upwards of thirty people._

Signor Ferrari claimed the one chair in the room, a leather armchair which creaked alarmingly beneath his weight. No one bothered to bring along any of the chairs from the living room. Introducing chairs into that limited space would have robbed too much space from their neighbors.

In deference to his rank, or perhaps simply because he'd been the second person into the room, Louis was able to secure a location sitting on Rick's bed. The bed swiftly became as crowded as a lifeboat in a shipwreck. Everyone who couldn't find sitting space on the bed stood crowded about, until the room became wall-to-wall people. The ironic thought occurred to Louis that—considering some of the fantasies he had found his mind spinning over these past few days—these were certainly not the circumstances he might have daydreamed for the first time he saw the inside of Richard Blaine's bedroom.

Sam, sitting to his left, took charge of the radio on the bedside table. He switched it on, and after only a minimum of adjustment, the signal came through, loud and clear. Currently carried by that signal was some classical piece of piano music. Louis checked his watch and saw the time was two minutes until midnight.

One of Sam's fellow band members asked, "What naval base do you think it is? Where would Japan attack?"

Behind them, one of the Cohen women added in a worried tone, "It wouldn't be in America itself, would it?"

"No," said Sam. "It wouldn't be on the mainland. Not unless the world's gone even crazier than I think it has." After a pause, he went on, "It could be the Philippines. Or maybe in Hawaii."

"You're sure that's the BBC?" someone asked.

Louis thought it was another band member who answered, "Yes. It is. They always do a music show before the midnight news."

The thought occurred to Louis of what an odd tableau they made: the prefect of police, Casablanca's most influential black marketeer, and thirty-plus largely dissident refugee nightclub employees, crowded together committing the illegal act of listening to an enemy broadcast. Even though, at this moment, the enemy was broadcasting nothing more detrimental to Axis and Vichy interests than a seemingly interminable piece of piano music. From the cross and nervous mutterings he heard, Louis was not alone in wondering if this piece was ever going to end.

The music at last ceased. It was replaced by the standard prim, chilly tones of a British radio announcer. In English, the man's voice declared, " _Here is the news, and this is Alvar Lidell reading it."_

Louis had wondered whether Ferrari's employee might have gotten the wrong end of the stick. But with the very next words of the report, he knew the man's information had been entirely accurate.

" _Japan has launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and has declared war on Britain and the United States._

" _The U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has mobilized all his forces and is poised to declare war on Japan._

" _Details of the attack in Hawaii are scarce but initial reports say Japanese bombers and torpedo-carrying 'planes targeted warships, aircraft and military installations in Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, the third largest and chief island of Hawaii."_

In whispers, various café employees translated for their comrades who were unversed in English. Apart from that, there was no sound in the crowded room except for Alvar Lidell reading the news.

" _News of the daring raid has shocked members of Congress at a time when Japanese officials in Washington were still negotiating with U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull on lifting U.S. sanctions imposed after continuing Japanese aggression against China._

" _At 0755 local time the first wave of between 50 and 150 'planes struck the naval base for 35 minutes causing several fires and 'untold damage' to the Pacific Fleet._

" _The Japanese squadrons dropped high-explosive and incendiary bombs._

" _A second strike followed at about 0900 when a force of at least 100 'planes pounded the base for an hour._

" _At least two Japanese airplanes have been shot down but it is reported that at least 350 men were killed by one single bomb at the Hickam Army Air Field, an Air Corps post on Oahu._

" _Officials announced a further 104 Army personnel were killed and 300 were wounded in the raid._

" _It is believed the attack was launched from two aircraft carriers. One radio report says U.S. forces downed six Japanese 'planes and sunk four submarines. There are reports the Hawaiian capital Honolulu was also bombed as well as the Pacific island of Guam and the capital of the Philippines, Manila._

" _A British gunboat, the_ Petrel _, has also been sunk at Shanghai in China._

" _Reports from Singapore suggest a build-up of Japanese warships in the South China Sea which seem to be headed for the Gulf of Siam, towards Bangkok._

" _President Roosevelt is working on a message to Congress tomorrow in which he is expected to ask for a declaration of war with Japan._

" _The_ Times _newspaper's Washington correspondent says the U.S. Government expects Germany and Italy to declare war on the U.S. within hours._ "

The report continued with a summary of American/Japanese relations since 1931. Louis was no longer fully listening.

He thought, _If Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, then it's happened. It has finally happened. What the Germans kept saying would never happen; what the rest of us kept hoping against hope would happen again._

 _The Americans will join the war in Europe. They can turn the tide, just like they did the last time. All those fresh men, fresh materiel, fresh money—they can change the balance of power enough. They can make the difference._

 _Maybe this time the Americans really_ will _blunder into Berlin._

Alvar Lidell moved on to the reading of other news. Sam switched off the radio.

Sam didn't seem to be looking at anybody, though the room was so crowded he could barely avoid his gaze landing on someone. He said flatly, "Well. I guess that's that."

"Yes," said Signor Ferrari. "It appears that it is. Let us return downstairs. I have no great fondness for playing the role of a sardine in a tin."

This time Sam held back as the others filed out, to ensure everyone left Rick's apartment and to switch out the lights. Louis and Carl hung back along with him. As they made their way down the stairs, Carl said, "I am so very sorry about this, Sam."

"It's all right," Sam said, his voice still flat and dull. "I don't have any family in the Navy. Or in Hawaii or the Philippines."

Back downstairs around their makeshift banquet table, the coffee waiters were bringing coffee for their observant Muslim co-workers and for their European colleagues who'd decided they needed to wake up. Tony, meanwhile, hurried about replenishing the supply of bottles.

"Nothing from the special reserves, now," Ferrari admonished him. "I should prefer not to give away the truly expensive stuff. And at this stage in the gathering, it would be wasted."

Tony automatically began to say, "Yes, boss." Then he corrected himself and told his fellow Italian, " _Sì,_ Signor."

Sascha was unavailable to help his fellow bartender resupply the drinks. He was currently holding Yvonne, who sobbed against his chest. As he walked past them to go lean against the bar, Louis heard Yvonne whispering to Sascha, "I'm so glad it wasn't about Rick. I'm so glad …"

"There, there, _kotyonok,_ "* Sascha murmured. He clutched Yvonne to him with one hand while stroking her hair with the other. "Cry all you want, _zvezda moya.**_ It is all right to cry."

 _Things look promising on that front,_ Louis thought. After the many times Sascha had publicly announced his love for Yvonne, it would be a satisfying development for their friends if Yvonne were to conclude that Sascha was the man for her, after all. Always assuming, of course, that Sascha did not discover he was bored with her as soon as she found she loved him.

Louis hadn't even gotten around yet to thinking about another drink, when Carl appeared at his side with a bottle and several glasses. "Will you have a brandy with me, Herr Captain?" he offered.

"Yes, I will," said Louis, glad that his next drink had arrived without his having to think about it. "Thank you. That will be very welcome."

Sam, with his face looking grim as thunder, walked up to lean against the bar at Louis' other side. Carl made haste to pour another brandy for him.

Sam nodded his thanks as he accepted the glass, but he didn't yet take a drink. His voice as grim as his face, he said, "They've bitten off more than they can chew. The poor stupid Japs don't know what they've let themselves in for."

Rosa Cohen, warming her hands on the coffee cup she was clutching, asked worriedly, "The Americans _will_ join the war in Europe, won't they? They won't just fight Japan?"

"They'll join the war in Europe," Louis said with certainty—although he did not feel as certain as he was pretending he did. "Churchill and Roosevelt have been thick as thieves for months. They'll have had it all worked out ahead of time, in case Japan pulled a stunt like this. Britain will stand by America in the Pacific, and America will join in the fun over here."

"And Herr Hitler's goose will be cooked," Carl declared with satisfaction. "It will be just like the last time. The Americans will come storming over, singing 'Yankee Doodle,' and they will kick the Nazis' asses all the way back to Berlin."

Louis chuckled at that statement which seemed so out-of-place, coming from Carl. Rosa Cohen raised her coffee cup and said, "Hear, hear."

Glowering down at his brandy glass, Sam muttered bitterly, "God be praised, the Americans come." His words had the sound of a quote to them, and Louis wondered suddenly at the story that might lie behind the quote. For the first time, he found himself wondering as much about Sam Wilson's past as he did about the past of Richard Blaine.

 _Rick,_ he thought then. _I wonder if Rick has heard this news._

He thought it was likely that Rick had not—particularly if he was still on the road to wherever Mr. King was sending him.

 _Where will he be when he hears of it? Who will be with him when he hears?_

 _I wonder what Ricky will think when he learns his country can no longer maintain its policy of sticking its neck out for nobody._

Louis glanced around, noting the expressions on the faces of Rick's employees. On those faces he saw excitement and worry, but most of all, he saw hope.

 _Hope,_ he thought. _Can I dare to let myself feel that, too?_

It was a long time since he'd permitted himself to flirt with that dangerous emotion.

It was, in fact, since June of 1940. Since the day the village in which he grew up became part of Occupied France.

 _And it's too early to hope much now,_ he told himself. _It is a damned long way from Japan inflicting "untold damage" on the U.S. Pacific Fleet, to the Yanks striding in heroically and kicking the Germans back to Berlin._

But still he felt an unfamiliar twinge of hope, however much he tried to order himself not to bother with it.

Before, there had been only the vaguest possibilities to cling to. There'd been only the unlikely chance that Germany's war machine might falter. That their seemingly invincible forces might reveal some chinks in their armor. That David might still get off some lucky shot and smash the forehead of Goliath.

And now …

Now, he thought, there might finally be real cause to hope. He had a reason to hope that the Germans might be sent packing. It was worthwhile hoping that Occupied France could someday be simply France again.

It was even worth hoping that his father and the rest of his family might live to see that day.

"I should like to propose another toast," Louis stated, almost before he made the conscious decision to do so. "If everyone has some sort of drink to hand."

Yvonne and Sascha were too busy hugging each other to bother with drinks, but everyone else he could see was holding a glass or cup. The babble of answers he received all sounded positive.

Captain Louis Renault raised his brandy glass on high. Solemnly, he toasted, "To the United States of America."

"The United States of America!"

He drank along with the rest of them. As he lowered his glass again, Louis felt an unexpected shiver.

He thought, _It is like that phrase Rick uses. It is as though somebody has walked over my grave._

 _I feel like a ghost just walked up to me. And I think I know whose ghost it is._

 _It is my own ghost. It is the ghost of Louis Julien Mathurin Renault._

 _It's my ghost from the day my brother and I joined up to fight for our fatherland, 27 years and at least a lifetime ago._

 _It may be my own ghost,_ he thought, _but it is speaking to me with another man's voice._

And he knew without question to whom that other voice belonged.

As clearly as though the man were standing there beside him, Louis heard the parting words that, four nights ago, Victor Laszlo spoke to Richard Blaine in the fog at the Casablanca airport.

 _Welcome back to the fight,_ said Laszlo's voice, in Louis' mind.

 _This time, I know our side will win._

* * *

 **Translations from Russian:**

* kotyonok: kitten

** zvezda moya: my star


End file.
